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SUCCESS  fc?  FAILURE 


SUCCESS  &P  FAILURE 


BY 

■ - 

ROBERT  F.  HORTON  M.A.  D.D. 


J 


NEW  YORK 

DODD  MEAD  & COMPANY 

149  151  FIFTH  AVENUE 

1897 


no 

s 


SUCCESS  AND  FAILURE 

THE  ADMIRATION  OF 
SUCCESS 

I WILL  confess  myself  at  once  a 
huge  admirer  of  success.  In  this, 
I doubt  not,  I am  at  one  with  the 
majority  of  my  kind.  But,  where  I 
find  myself  at  some  variance  with  my 
fellow  men  is  in  the  conception  of  suc- 
cess itself.  Success,  if  I may  define 
it  in  my  own  way,  I can  admire  with 
the  most  ardent  of  them ; but  what 
passes  as  success  I find  myself  fre- 
quently quite  unable  to  admire ; nay, 
it  chills  me  with  a comfortless  dismay, 
as  if  one  had  clambered  up  to  the 
sunlit  mountain  summit  to  stand  in  its 
lustrous  gold  and  be  bathed  in  its 
crimson  splendour,  and  had  found  it 


703109 


6 Success  and  Failure 

cold  and  solitary,  the  weird  meeting- 
place  of  terrors  and  the  haunt  of  death. 

I daresay  I carry  a part  of  the 
majority  with  me  when  I confess  that 
the  success  of  a South  African  mil- 
lionaire affects  me  in  this  disastrous 
way.  He  comes  home  with  a million 
or  so,  squarely  earned  by  a deft 
method  of  separating  the  gold  from 
the  quartz  ; and,  by  some  dexterous 
passes  in  company  - mongering,  he 
easily  makes  his  one  million  two,  and 
then  they  of  themselves  propagate  a 
third  and  a fourth,  and  spawn  mon- 
strously into  untold  numbers.  I ob- 
serve the  astonished  world  bowing 
and  ducking  to  him,  cap  in  hand ; and 
the  sallow  denizens  of  Jewry  are  all 
aflame  with  ambition  to  go  and  do 
likewise.  He  is  not  troubled  by  un- 
comfortable memories ; he  came  by 
his  wealth  very  honestly  ; he  parts 
with  it  generously  and  magnanimously  ; 
and  meanwhile  he  shines  with  a far- 
reaching  and  dazzling  brilliance.  He 


The  Admiration  of  Success  7 

goes  down  into  the  country  and  buys 
an  ancestral  house  ; he  sets  the  sleepy 
countryside  agog,  and  floods  it  with 
workmen,  building,  laying  out  gardens, 
glass  houses,  pheasant  coverts,  and 
the  rest.  The  time  seems  to  have 
come  when  the  prophecy  is  fulfilled, 
and  ten  men  will  take  hold  of  one 
that  is  a Jew,  saying,  “We  will  go 
with  thee,  for  we  have  heard  that  God 
is  with  you  ” (Zech.  viii.  23).  And 
as  the  word  “ success  19  is  understood, 
this  man  is  successful  beyond  the 
dreams  of  romance.  And  yet  I pro- 
test that  this  kind  of  success  appears 
to  me  neither  brilliant  nor  admirable. 
I see  the  unhappy  man  suddenly  in- 
volved in  the  gleaming  folds  of  a 
monstrous  python,  that  will  inevitably 
throttle  him.  And  I suppose  that, 
while  a few  of  the  thoughtless  envy 
him,  most  o£  the  thoughtful  pity  him, 
and  the  pious  pray  for  him. 

But  where  I part  company  from  all, 
except  a few,  is  in  this,  that  success 


8 Success  and  Failure 

of  a far  more  unexceptionable  kind 
leaves  me  cold  and  untouched.  I 
must  speak  my  mind,  though  it  re- 
quires some  courage  to  do  so ; but  a 
career  like  Lord  Macaulay’s  is  to  me 
positively  oppressive.  Sir  George 
Trevelyan’s  “ Life  ” is  admittedly  a 
masterpiece  in  biography  ; the  picture 
drawn  is  perfectly  faithful ; the  career 
depicted  is  the  most  brilliant,  yes,  the 
most  successful,  achieved  in  England 
during  this  great  century  ; and  yet,  the 
book  leaves  me  in  a melancholy  which 
I find  it  difficult  to  throw  off.  One 
may  say  that  the  monotony  of  success 
palls  on  the  reader.  Here  is  a man 
who*  does  faultlessly  whatever  he 
attempts.  He  writes  essays,  and  all 
the  world  wonders.  He  enters  Parlia- 
ment, or  goes  to  administer  India,  with 
equal  applause.  He  determines  to 
write  a 4<  History  ” which  shall  cut 
out  the  popular  novel  of  the  season, 
and  he  accomplishes  it.  He  is  raised 
to  the  Peerage,  the  first  man  of  letters 


The  Admiration  of  Success  9 

ennobled  for  letters  alone.  “ Nothing 
occurred,”  as  his  biographer  says, 
“ that  broke  the  monotony  of  an  easy 
and  rapid  voyage.”  And  that  kind  of 
monotony  is  to  the  observer  a little 
tiresome  no  doubt.  But  it  is  not  the 
monotony  of  success  which  afflicts  me 
in  the  life  of  Macaulay.  It  is  rather 
that  the  whole  life  is  lived,  and  lived 
with  absolute  success,  on  the  plane 
and  within  the  compass  of  this  present 
world.  So  much  an  active,  brilliant, 
and  high-minded  man  can  accomplish 
fn  this  world  of  ours.  Unexcited  by 
the  possibilities  of  a future,  interested 
and  engrossed  in  literature,  politics, 
society,  so  a man  has  lived  and  died 
with  universal  applause,  and  a tomb 
in  Westminster  Abbey.  Here  is  no 
touch  of  failure,  no  weakness,  where 
the  forlorn  brotherhood  of  the  unsuc- 
cessful can  come  into  momentary 
contact  with  their  fellow  man.  Here 
is  life  rounded,  complete,  self-poised. 
Its  only  check  is  death ; if  death  were 


io  Success  and  Failure 

out  of  the  question  it  would  be  an  un- 
broken success.  And  yet,  if  death 
did  not  come — what  then  ? Can  one 
go  on  for  ever  writing  fascinating 
reviews,  and'  dazzling  the  world  with 
vivid,  though  not  impartial,  histories, 
talking  with  “ brilliant  flashes  of 
silence,”  shining  for  the  world  to 
wonder  at?  No,  if  death  did  not 
come  to  one’s  relief  the  thing  would 
pall.  And  yet,  when  death  comes, 
nothing  has  suggested  any  beyond. 
Here  are  no  roots  struggling  towards 
“ the  light  which  never  was,  on  sea  or 
land.”  Here  are  no  threads  of  a web 
which  is  incomplete  straining  towards 
completeness  by-and-by.  Here  are 
no  sighs  and  aspirations,  no  murmur 
of  “ Had  I the  wings  of  a dove.” 
All  is  satisfied,  rounded,  composed, 
brought  to  its  natural  Finis  with 
flourishes  and  decorum.  Then  per- 
haps, after  all,  life  is  a finished 
whole  in  itself ; and  while  almost 
all  men  are  failures,  here  and  there 


The  Admiration  of  Success  1 1 

comes  a success,  and  this  is  the 
result. 

Needless  to  say,  I am  not  criticising 
the  great  Whig  historian.  As  for 
passing  any  judgment  upon  his  soul, 
God  forbid  that  I should  even  seem 
to  do  such  a thing.  But  I am  looking 
at  this  typical  example  of  a successful 
life,  the  most  successful  life  I know  in 
literature,  and  I have  to  admit  frankly 
that  this  success  does  not  stir  more 
than  a very  faint  admiration  in  my 
mind.  Its  very  completeness  is  what 
awakes  misgiving.  Its  moral  appears 
to  me  to  be  that  human  life,  given  the 
most  absolute  fulfilment  of  all  its 
cherished  aims,  and  the  realisation  of 
all  its  wildest  ambitions,  does  not  con- 
tain stuff  enough  to  clothe  a human  soul. 

But  let  me  say  no  more  of  Macaulay, 
or  the  reader  will  not  accompany  me 
a page  farther.  Kind  reader,  I de- 
precate your  wrath.  Cling  to  your 
Macaulay,  if  you  will.  Admire  that 
dazzling  success.  Say  that  I was 


1 2 Success  and  Failure 

envious,  churlish,  or  at  least  mis- 
guided in  my  confession  that  the 
success  does  not  fill  me  with  a high 
admiration  ; but  come  on  with  me  a 
little  longer,  and  let  me  try  to  assure 
you  of  my  original  statement  that  I 
am — like  yourself — a huge  admirer  of 
success. 

Now  will  you  be  patient  while  I 
depict  the  kind  of  success  which  I am 
able  to  admire  ? You  observe,  we  are 
not  discussing  success  in  a particular 
undertaking,  or  what  is  generally 
called  success  in  life ; about  this  we 
can  only  speak  incidentally.  What 
we  are  discussing  is  success  absolutely. 
We  want  to  know  what  would  justify 
us  in  speaking  of  you,  for  example,  as 
successful,  when  the  tale  is  told  and 
the  end  is  reached.  And  success, 
when  we  are  thinking  of  you}  and  not 
of  your  aims  or  transitory  enterprises, 
can  only  be  estimated  by  what  you 
are,  and  what  you  might  be,  nay, 
what  you  are  meant  to  be,  and  must 


/ 


j 

The  Admiration  of  Success  13 

be,  in  order  to  be  truly  you.  Now, 
regarded  in  this  light,  the  ordinary  use 
of  tjhe  word  is  very  trivial.  For  what 
could  be  more  absurd  than  to  speak  of 
a lnan  as  successful  because  he  has 
made  it  his  aim  to  be  a good  billiard- 
plaiyer,  or  to  be  a good  acrobat,  or  to 
be,  a good  keeper  of  racehorses,  and 
bis  succeeded  ? He  is  a successful 
billiard-player,  or  tumbler,  or  stable- 
man, but  a successful  many  no,  unless 
it  is  conceivable  that  the  Almighty 
designed  “man,  His  last  work,”  to 
knock  ivory  balls  into  pockets,  or  to 
twist  himself  round  on  a trapeze,  and 
stand  balanced  on  his  neighbour’s 
head,  or  to  train  a horse  which  over 
three  miles  of  turf  can  get  a neck’s 
length  ahead  of  another  horse.  You 
do  not  yourself,  I presume,  admire 
a successful  burglar,  or  a company 
promoter  who  succeeds  in  scuttling 
out  of  the  undertaking  just  as  the 
people  he  has  inveigled  are  ruined. 
And  I am  only  pushing  the  principle 


H 


Success  and  Failure 


a little  farther  when  I say  that  success 
is  only  admirable  if  the  end  is  ad-mir- 
able  ; and,  in  the  matter  of  a hinman 
soul,  the  only  success  that  one  can 
frankly  admire  is  that  secured  by  t.he 
soul  becoming  what  God  meant  it 
to  be.  Success  lies)  not  in  achieving 
what  you  aim  at,  but  in  aiming  at  what 
you  ought  to  achieve , and  pressing  for- 
ward, sure  of  achievement  here . or  if 
not  here , hereafter. 

Now  we  have  our  theme  cleared,  and 
we  see  what  we  are  talking  about.  And 
you  are  at  one  with  me ; for,  in  spite  of 
all  the  false  admirations  and  the  hasty 
judgments  which  we  hear  and  repeat ; 
in  spite  of  the  natural  difficulty  of  with- 
holding admiration  from  what  all  the 
world  says  it  admires ; in  spite  of  the 
weak  moments  when  a low  success  in 
business,  in  society,  in  art,  seems  se- 
ducing as  a Siren’s  voice,  we  are  all  at 
one  ; when  we  go  into  ourselves  and  re- 
flect, we  are  so  constituted  by  God  that 
we  are  incapable  of  counting  any  one 


The  Admiration  of  Success  15 

absolutely  successful  who  does  not  find 
Him  and  rest  in  Him  ; and  what  in  our 
hearts  we  genuinely  admire,  is  that 
achievement  of  God,  that  settling  of 
the  life  on  Him  and  His  will,  and  that 
discovery  of  Him  as  the  only  reality, 
which  it  was,  and  for  ever  is,  the 
purpose  of  Christ  to  effect. 

But  this  leads  me  to  observe  that  we 
are  often  under  some  delusion  in  the 
matter  of  what  we  really  admire.  We 
suppose  that  we  admire  what  is  generally 
considered  admirable,  and  our  exclama- 
tions of  approval  echo  from  lip  to  lip, 
while  if  ever  we  go  down  into  our  own 
hearts  and  inquire  we  may  make  the 
discovery  that  there  is  no  genuine 
admiration  there  at  all.  We  are  all 
like  sheep  in  our  admiration.  One,  the 
bell-wether,  has  taken  a certain  course 
by  chance,  and  the  rest  follow.  The 
success  which  is  admired  in  the  world 
is  usually  admired  only  in  this  gregarious 
way ; that  is  to  say,  if  you  come  to 
close  quarters  with  any  individual,  you 


1 6 Success  and  Failure 

find  that  he  does  not  admire  it  at  all — 
he  only  echoes  the  hollow  cry  which 
chances  to  be  in  the  air. 

I will  test  this  remark  by  an  example 
or  two. 

There  is  Petronius)  whom  everybody 
knows,  or  rather,  I should  say,  whom 
everybody  knows  of,  for  very  few  of  us 
have  the  distinction  of  his  personal 
acquaintance  He  is  the  leader  of 
fashion  and  the  arbiter  elegantice . What 
he  wears,  or  does,  or  says,  settles  the 
mode,  and  every  one  is  best  pleased 
who  can  succeed  in  imitating  him.  His 
tailor  is  able  to  charge  twenty  per  cent, 
extra  to  all  customers.  A haberdasher 
with  a new  cravat  would  not  dream  of 
putting  it  on  the  market  without  his 
approval,  and  with  his  approval  further 
advertisement  is  needless.  His  con- 
versation is  as  faultless  as  his  clothes, 
and  impresses  one  in  the  same  manner 
— as  something  recently  acquired  and 
put  on.  He  is  a fine  raconteur)  and 
every  spicy  story  comes  into  his  capa- 


The  Admiration  of  Success  17 

cious  brain  and  issues  from  it  improved. 
It  would  be  absolutely  impossible  to 
have  a dinner  party  without  him,  and 
the  strain  of  sustained  elegance  and 
entertainment  has  broken  his  constitu- 
tion. But  if  his  frame  is  shrunken,  his 
clothes  are  still  perfection.  Not  to  have 
a complete  change  of  linen  every  day, 
and  twice  most  days  of  the  week,  would 
give  him  a sense  of  nausea.  He  can 
tolerate  your  filthiest  debauchee  in 
town,  provided  he  is  clean  ! There  are 
some  vices  which  are  not  fashionable  : 
these  he  condemns  with  a dignified  and 
pensive  moral  earnestness.  But  as  the 
majority  of  vices,  and  the  worst,  are 
fashionable,  he  has  no  condemnation 
for  them  at  all.  He  is  considered  a 
charming  companion — though  I never 
heard  of  any  one  who  would  take  a 
journey  with  him ; and  no  woman  has 
ever  brought  herself  to  be  the  com- 
panion of  his  life.  Every  one,  as  I 
say,  knows  him,  quotes  him,  admires 
him,  courts  him,  invites  him  ; and  you 


B 


1 8 Success  and  Failure 

would  suppose  that  when  he  fails,  there 
will  be  countless  multitudes  to  receive 
him  into  their  habitations.  There  is  no 
one  about  whom  society  is  so  unani- 
mous ; for  he  never  makes  a faux  pas , 
loses  his  temper,  or  is  guilty  of  any 
breach  in  propriety.  His  religion  is 
etiquette  ; his  morals  are  the  practice 
of  good  society ; his  intellect  is  the 
exact  counterpart  of  the  tone ; as  a 
resplendent  figurehead  he  represents 
the  circle  in  which  he  moves,  and  I need 
not  tell  you  that  that  circle  is  the  best. 

But  now  I put  it  to  you,  candidly,  do 
you  admire  him  ? You  have  implied 
that  you  do  a thousand  times.  You 
have  tried  to  appear  like  him,  and  you 
have  been  fluttered  with  excitement 
when  you  thought  that  he  had  noticed 
you.  But  going  into  your  heart,  you 
can  easily  recognise  that  the  moments 
of  your  admiration  and  attempted  imita- 
tion were  your  bad,  nay  your  worst, 
moments,  and  that  in  all  the  wholesome 
moods,  so  far  from  admiring,  you 


The  Admiration  of  Success  19 

heartily  despise  him.  And  now  get 
into  the  heart  of  those  who  form  the 
society  of  which  he  is  the  admired 
ornament,  into  the  heart,  into  the  secret 
chamber  of  honest  verdicts,  and  you 
find  that  not  one  of  these  flatterers 
really  admires  him.  If  you  prosecute 
your  inquiries  you  reach  the  conclusion 
that  there  is  only  one  person  in  all  the 
world  who  thoroughly  admires  Pet- 
ronius,  and  that  is  Petronius  himself. 
And  I have  a suspicion  that  if  ever  he 
went  into  his  own  heart — an  unlikely 
contingency  I own — he  would  find  that 
his  own  admiration  is  as  unreal  as  the 
admiration  of  the  rest. 

Or  I daresay  you  know  Faustina)  for 
indeed  she  deserves  to  be  known.  I 
have  frequently  heard  her  praised  as 
the  model  mother,  and  I have  seen 
young  married  women  sitting  at  her 
feet,  as  it  were,  to  learn  her  methods, 
and  shaping  their  souls  to  her  pattern, 
as  their  bodies  are  shaped  to  the 
pattern  in  the  corset-maker’s  front 


20  Success  and  Failure 

window.  And  I am  free  to  admit  that 
I have  often  myself,  in  regarding  Faus- 
tina, felt  a wonder  which  is  hard  to  dis- 
tinguish from  admiration.  Her  sons, 
as  she  would  confess  to  you,  she  left  to 
her  husband — u*For  what,  my  dear, 
could  a delicate  and  nervous  woman 
like  me  do  with  strapping  boys  ? ” — 
and  they  have  all  gone  to  the  bad.  In 
talking  of  them  she  always  commands 
some  beautiful  maternal  tears,  and  by 
one  of  her  pathetic  and  religious  ejacu- 
lations she  has  often  sent  away  a bevy 
of  callers  dissolved  in  pity,  if  not  in 
tears.  But  with  her  daughters,  whom 
she  took  in  hand  from  the  beginning, 
she  has  achieved  an  acknowledged 
success.  In  each  case  she  very  early 
selected  whom  the  girl  should  marry, 
and  by  the  intervention  of  Providence, 
as  she  says  to  her  clergyman,  her  design 
has  always  been  realised.  Hardly  less 
admnable  is  the  selection  she  made,  or 
the  avowed  motive  which  determined 
the  selection.  Her  eldest  daughter  was 


The  Admiration  of  Success  2 1 

destined  to  cheer  the  solitude  and  old 
age  of  a widower,  whose  declining  years 
promised  to  be  melancholy  indeed, 
agitated  by  the  constant  efforts  of  de- 
signing relatives  to  secure  his  enormous 
wealth.  Her  second  daughter  was 
married  to  a cousin,  for  family  reasons. 
“ It  would  be  impious,”  as  Faustina 
said,  “ to  let  that  estate  in  Hampshire 
pass  out  of  the  family  by  an  alien  mar- 
riage, and  my  precious  Lavinia  is  quite 
aware  of  the  impiety.”  That  the  grand- 
children in  this  branch  of  the  family 
are  mentally  diseased  is  “one  of  those 
mysteries  which  shake  one’s  faith  in  a 
benevolent  Deity.”  Her  third  daughter 
— she  has  but  three — “ God  bless  the 
dear,  dutiful  girls,  who  never  gave  me 
a moment’s  anxiety  in  my  life  ! ” — was 
very  near  to  giving  her  trouble,  for  she 
fell  in  love  with  a young  enthusiast, 
“ one  of  those  men — don’t  you  know 
— who  think  that  they  have  a commis- 
sion from  the  Almighty  to  put  the 
world  right.”  But  such  was  the  power 


22 


Success  and  Failure 


of  early  training — “ Train  up  a child  in 
the  way  he  should  go,  I always  say, 
and  often  turn  to  that  lovely  passage  in 
Ecclesiastes  ” — that  she  immediately 
followed  the  maternal  guidance,  which 
had  selected  the  curate  of  the  parish. 
“ I always  think,”  said  Faustina  to  her 
friends,  “ that  a young  clergyman,  of 
all  men,  needs  a good  wife,  and  I feel 
it  doing  the  work  of  the  Church,  yes, 
in  my  humble  way,  doing  the  work  of 
our  Lord,  to  prepare  my  darling  child 
to  be  the  partner  of  such  a man.”  And 
besides,  there  was  this  further  element 
of  benevolence,  that  the  curate,  who 
was  an  ascetic,  was  the  son  of  the 
wealthiest  baronet  in  England,  who  had 
cut  him  off  with  a shilling  for  becoming 
a priest,  and  only  promised  to  restore 
him  to  his  favour  if  he  married  like  a 
sensible  man,  and  prepared  himself  to 
take  up  the  management  of  the  estate. 

This  signal  and  unselfish  success  of 
Faustina’s  has  filled  the  mouths  of  her 
friends  with  praises — or  with  envy — 


The  Admiration  of  Success  23 

and  no  one  is  more  admired  in  the 
county.  Yet  do  you  admire  her  ? 
Her  self-delusion,  her  unconscious  hy- 
pocrisies, the  brood  of  trouble  she  has 
hatched  for  her  sons  and  daughters  ; 
the  inevitable  awaking,  the.  crushing 
judgment  that  must  follow,  fill  me  with 
dismay.  And  I am  sure  you  share  my 
sentiments.  You  have  no  admiration 
for  this  universally  admired  woman. 

But  I will  tell  you,  if  you  will  let  me,, 
whom  you  really  admire,  though  you 
never  perhaps  heard  or  expressed  any 
admiration  for  him  before.  Read  Sir 
William  Hunter’s  little  book  called  The 
Old  Missionary.  That  is  a tale  of  self- 
denial  and  compassion,  of  patience,, 
benignity,  and  courtesy.  There  is  one 
who  eludes  the  notice  of  the  world, 
who  lives  and  dies  in  unobtrusive 
service,  who  even  in  his  death  is  not 
named  or  remembered.  Now,  that 
man  you  really  admire.  This  man 
after  whom  the  world  does  not  go,  is 
he  after  whom  your  own  heart  goes, 


24  Success  and  Failure 

aye,  and  every  one  of  the  hearts  that 
in  their  degradation  and  delusion  make 
up  that  huge  falsity  “ the  world.” 
You  must  get  the  little  book  and  read 
it ; and  if  I am  wrong  I shall  beg  you 
to  let  me  know.  It  would  be  curious 
indeed  to  meet  a person  who  in  his 
heart  did  not  admire  The  Old  Mis- 
sionary. 

And  once  more  I will  tell  you  whom 
you  admire.  He  is  one  whom  men 
have  always  affected  to  despise,  and  in 
their  irritation  have  sought  to  slay ; 
but  their  apparent  hatred  has  been  the 
result  of  a secret  admiration  which 
they  could  not  suppress,  an  admiration 
which  threatened  to  drive  them  into  a 
breach  of  all  their  habits  and  precon- 
ceptions. I venture  to  say  that  in 
your  heart  you  admire  Jesus  Christ. 
You  may  turn  away  from  Him  and  try 
to  forget  Him,  but  He  haunts  you  as  a 
vision  of  beauty.  You  may  argue 
against  Him  and  try  to  disprove  Him, 
but  if  your  logic  seems  to  you  trium- 


The  Admiration  of  Success  25 

phant  there  is  none  who  regrets  it  so 
much  as  yourself.  You  may  take  His 
name  in  vain,  and  even  sneer  at  Him  ; 
but  what  impels  you  to  do  so  is 
only  the  fierce  delight  of  blasphemy. 
It  is  because  all  that  is  good  in  you 
admires  Him,  that  all  that  is  bad  in 
you  thrills  with  the  rapture  of  reviling 
Him. 

Yes,  misguided  as  are  the  conven- 
tional judgments  of  men,  pathetically 
constant  are  their  inner  standards  and 
ideals.  These  feverish  natures  which 
hunt  their  low  successes  over  half  a 
world  ; which  strive  and  cry,  and  laugh 
and  exult,  and  flourish  their  mean 
achievements  in  the  eye  of  heaven ; 
these  men  dowered  with  millions ; 
these  women  who  lead  society ; these 
bespangled  stars  of  the  stage ; these 
successful  operators,  speculators,  de- 
predators ; could  you  follow  them  be- 
hind the  scenes,  into  the  secret  cham- 
bers where  their  hearts  weep  alone,  and 
their  eyes  look  into  the  mirror  of  truth 


26  Success  and  Failure 

and  see  themselves,  what  would  you 
find  ? Why,  sick  and  weary  and  dis- 
illusionised, their  eyes  seek  just  what 
in  the  mirror  they  do  not  see.  They 
seek  some  spirit,  simple  and  undefiled, 
some  concourse  where  men  love  and 
do  not  strive,  some  crown  which  does 
not  weigh  like  gold  upon  their  brow. 
They  seek  that  face,  the  Man  of 
Sorrows  acquainted  with  grief,  the 
homeless  Man  of  Sorrows,  who  alone 
possesses  a home  of  many  mansions. 
It  is,  after  all,  this  Man  whom  they 
admire  and  desire.  Christ,  O Christ, 
disown  me  not,  reject  me  not,  remem- 
ber even  me  in  Thy  kingdom.  In  the 
excited  ways  of  men  and  the  distracted 
currents  of  the  world,  they  have  pro- 
fessed to  admire  a thousand  persons,  a 
thousand  things,  which  were  Anti- 
christ. Deep  down  in  their  hearts 
they  have  admired  only  Christ. 

And  thus  I carry  all  hearts  with  me 
when  I say  that  what  I admire  is  the 
success  of  one  who  has  set  his  desire 


The  Admiration  of  Success  27 

on  the  ways  of  God,  and,  undeterred 
by  false  visions  or  deluding  sounds, 
has  striven  towards  Him  to  the  end, 
and  passed  out  of  our  sight  still  striv- 
ing. 


OF  SUCCESS  WHICH  IS 
FAILURE 


We  have  seen  what  we  mean  by 
success.  And  a few  questions  have 
already  been  asked  which  reveal  the 
shams  that  often  pass  by  that  name  in 
the  world.  But  you  must  have  a re- 
lentless search-light,  and  you  must 
track  down  the  phantoms  if  you  are 
going  to  be  proof  against  the  illusions 
which  are  constantly  palming  them- 
selves off  as  successes. 

The  search-light  by  which  success 
has  to  be  tested  is  briefly  this.  What 
effect  has  it  had  upon  the  soul?  Now, 
I do  not  propose  to  depreciate  the 
enterprise  and  energy  by  which  the 
wealth  of  the  community  is  enlarged, 


Of  Success  which  is  Failure  29 

its  knowledge  extended,  and  its  prac- 
tical conveniences  increased.  If  the 
socialist  ideal  of  the  world  is  correct, 
then  society  is  to  be  considered  suc- 
cessful in  proportion  as  all  men  have 
three  square  meals  a day,  enjoy  the 
use  of  the  railway  and  the  telegraph, 
have  sufficient  upholstery,  and  secure 
adequate  leisure  for  amusement  accord- 
ing to  their  tastes.  Towards  these 
fine  materialistic  ideals  the  inventors, 
students,  workers  are  all  contributing ; 
and  as  such  a possibility  comes  appre- 
ciably nearer,  they  may  be  considered 
successful,  from  that  particular  point 
of  view.  Do  not  let  me,  therefore,  be 
understood  as  under-rating  their 
several  services  to  society,  when  I 
still  venture  to  press  the  question, 
“ What  effect  has  their  successful 
labour  had  on  their  own  souls  ? ” For 
those,  few  or  many,  who  believe  in  the 
soul,  and  contemplate  it  in  the  light  of 
eternity,  this  is  the  primary  considera- 
tion. Just  as  I should  not  congratu- 


30 


Success  and  Failure 


late  you  on  your  success  if  you  had 
used  a priceless  canvas  of  Raphael  to 
make  the  grate  draw,  and  had  suc- 
ceeded in  making  a good  fire  but 
ruined  the  picture,  so  a human  soul, 
employed  to  amass  wealth,  make  phy- 
sical discoveries,  or  extend  the  boun- 
daries of  human  knowledge,  is  ill- 
employed,  and  essentially  unsuccessful, 
if  in  the  process  it  is  destroyed  or 
ruined. 

Now,  here  is  an  observation  which 
it  is  comparatively  easy  to  verify.  An 
immense  proportion  of  what  is  called 
success  in  life,  commercial  success, 
professional  success,  social  success,  is 
secured  by  the  destruction  or  injury  of 
that  fine  instrument,  the  soul.  If  one 
has  kept  an  open  eye  on  .men,  he 
will  be  prepared  to  suspect  “ success- 
ful ” men,  and  to  look  for  charm  and 
interest,  and  especially  for  truth  and 
guidance,  from  those  who  have  been 
less  successful,  or  perhaps  not  success- 
ful at  all.  Here  it  is.~vdi£ficult  to  speak 


Of  Success  which  is  Failure  31 

without  plunging  into  the  errors  of  the 
satirist.  But  I will  try  to  be  explicit, 
because  I know  that  if  I would  engage 
the  reader’s  admiration  for  the  true 
success,  I must  inspire  him  with  a 
suspicion,  and  even  positive  dislike,  of 
the  successes  of  the  world.  I hesitate 
to  speak  of  my  acquaintance  in  such  a 
connection ; but  I take  refuge  in  the 
reflection  that  successful  people  are  far 
too  busy  to  read  my  words. 

Nowt,  there  is  Negotius , one  of  the 
most  successful  merchants  in  a nor- 
thern town,  whose  suburban  house  as 
well  deserves  a visit  as  some  of  the 
famous  galleries  and  villas  in  Rome. 
Whatever  he  touches  has  turned  to 
gold.  Ever  since  his  first  attempts 
in  business  he  has  never  had  a real 
reverse.  His  nearest  approach  to  a 
disaster  was  that  once,  when  his 
fortune  stood  at  one  million,  he  lost 
by  an  unlucky  venture  a hundred 
thousand,  which  went  near  to  breaking 
his  heart,  and  actually  turned  his  hair 


32  Success  and  Failure 

grey.  It  is  a pretty  sight  to  see  him 
scan  the  columns  of  the  money  market 
in  the  morning  paper,  which  are  as  in- 
teresting to  him  as  the  pages  of  the 
Bible.  A pretty  sight,  for  he  changes 
colour  with  every  glance  ; but  his  in- 
vestments are  so  well  placed  that  he 
usually  turns  to  his  breakfast  with  a 
look  of  elation  and  a good  appetite. 
From  breakfast  to  dinner  he  is  in  his 
office,  and  works,  as  he  says,  like  a 
slave.  Once  there  was  an  object  for 
this  hard  labour,  when  he  had  a young 
wife  and  family  to . support ; but  long 
after  the  object  has  been  attained,  the 
labour  continues,  and  he  has  forgotten 
that,  while  with  a worthy  object  such 
toil  is  laudable,  without  such  an  object, 
to  work  like  a slave  is  to  be  a slave,  as 
indeed  he  is.  The  rest  of  his  day 
requires  no  description,  for  in  the 
strict  sense  of  the  word  it  has  no 
conscious  existence.  His  Sunday  is 
like  the  rest  of  the  week,  except  that 
on  that  day  his  mind  only  is  in  his 


Of  Success  which  is  Failure  33 

business,  while  his  body  is  in  the 
family  pew,  or  reclining  after  dinner 
with  a handkerchief  over  his  head.  I 
ought  to  say  that  his  habits  are  regular, 
and  he  is  a very  moderate  eater  and 
drinker,  because,  as  he  says,  excess  is 
bad  for  business.  His  only  excess  is 
business  itself.  I believe  he  would  be 
generous  with  his  money,  but  he  has 
not  time  to  interest  himself  in  good 
works,  or  even  to  hear  the  pleas  of 
those  who  are  engaged  in  them. 
Oddly  enough,  he  is  a Christian,  and 
a very  orthodox  believer ; but  if  he  is 
awkwardly  reminded  of  Dives  and 
Lazarus,  or  “Lay  not  up  for  yourselves 
treasures  on  earth,”  he  quickly  retreats 
to  the  fine  apostolic  precept,  “ Not 
slothful  in  business,”  and  he  settled 
the  question  of  the  Revised  Bible, 
agreeing  at  once  with  all  Dean  Bur- 
gon’s  attacks  on  the  revisers,  when  he 
was  told  that  his  favourite  text  was 
-altered.  Now  Negotius  is  so  widely 
and  properly  respected  that  it  seems 


34  Success  and  Failure 

presumptuous  to  say  that  he  and  his 
life  are  a failure.  Nor  should  I have 
ventured  to  make  so  rude  an  assertion, 
but  that  I chanced  to  light  on  some 
letters  which  were  written  by  a friend 
of  his  in  early  manhood.  And  I con- 
fess the  contrast  between  what  he 
promised  to  be  and  what  he  has 
become,  filled  me  with  dismay.  In 
those  young  days  he  was  an  ardent 
teacher  of  a boys’  class,  and  spent 
early  hours  in  studying  all  kinds  of 
books  for  the  lessons,  and  late  evenings 
in  brotherly  intercourse  with  the  lads. 
He  had  a tender  heart,  and  frequently 
gave  away  half  his  small  salary  to 
needy  friends.  He  was  the  light  of 
the  eyes  of  his  parents  who  were  good, 
industrious  people,  unfortunately  be- 
lieving in  “ success,”  but  fortunately 
not  attaining  it. 

I imagine  that  little  by  little  as  busi- 
ness claims  thickened,  the  work  for 
others  was  surrendered,  and  the  in- 
terest in  others  waned.  As  the  mind 


Of  Success  which  is  Failure  35 

became  engrossed  in  the  absorbing 
occupation,  the  sympathies  and  affec- 
tions cooled  ; certainly  few  men  now 
are  less  loved  by  wife  and  children 
than  Negotius.  And  estimating  what 
a falling-off  was  there,  and  quantum 
mutatus  ab  illo)  I can  only  say  that  this 
is  a failure.  As  a merchant-prince,  as 
a pride  of  his  country,  as  one  of  the 
solid  foundations  of  our  commercial 
prosperity,  he  is  a success.  But  as  a 
soul  he  is  a failure.  It  is  a soul  which 
has  gradually  dried  up,  until  all  its 
juices  are  gone  ; in  their  place  is  the 
thin,  fierce  lust  of  accumulation. 

If  it  seems  hard  to  describe  Negotius 
as  a failure,  it  seems  the  most  contu- 
melious rashness  to  say  the  same  of 
my  friend  Causidicus . But  I ask  the 
kind  and  candid  reader  to  judge. 
Causidicus  has  certainly  made  his  way 
in  the  world,  and,  to  do  him  justice,  he 
will  not  resent  my  mentioning  that  he 
is  the  son  of  what  are  called  in  edifying 
books,  “ poor  but  pious  ” parents.  He 


36  Success  and  Failure 

was,  I fancy,  from  the  first  keenly 
conscious  of  that  nice  distinction. 
“ Poor,  but  pious — yes,  how  un- 
favourable to  piety  is  poverty ! Let 
me  strive  to  increase  the  chances  of 
my  piety  by  avoiding  the  possibilities 
of  poverty.  How  Causidicus  made  his 
way  to  the  Bar,  and  then  made  his 
way  at  the  Bar,  is  a magnificent  record 
of  splendid  success,  achieved  in  the 
face  of  overwhelming  obstacles.  How 
busy  he  is  I cannot  possibly  describe. 
He  always  reminds  me  of  Southey, 
and  of  the  question  which  the  Quaker 
lady  addressed  to  him.  Southey  had 
related  in  his  enthusiastic  way  that  he 
studied  Portuguese  grammar  while  he 
was  shaving ; read  Spanish  for  an 
hour  before  breakfast  ; after  breakfast, 
wrote  or  studied  till  dinner,  and  filled 
all  his  day  with  writing,  reading,  eat- 
ing, talking,  taking  exercise,  or  sleep- 
ing. “And,  friend,  when  dost  thee 
think  ? ” inquired  the  quiet  voice. 

Causidicus  is  alwrays  in  consultation, 


Of  Success  which  is  Failure  37 

or  in  court,  or  working  up  his  briefs  at 
home,  or  talking  about  the  courts  and 
the  judges  and  the  “ musty  purlieus  of 
the  law."  He  is  the  leader  of  his 
division  of  the  Bar ; and  he  deserves 
to  be ; for  he  has  sacrificed  his  soul  to 
it.  He  is  law ; he  is  nothing  else. 
When  he  kneels  down  to  say  his 
prayers  he  gabbles  over  a few  pre- 
cedents. When  he  used  to  go  to 
church  he  disturbed  his  neighbours  by 
sotto  voce  addresses  to  the  jury.  And 
I have  heard  that  when  he  proposed 
to  a lady,  and  she  demurred  or  put  a 
question,  he  referred  her  abstractedly 
to  Blackstone,  where  indeed  his  heart 
was.  Every  one  says  that  Causidicus 
will  be  a judge,  and  his  portrait  will 
be  painted  in  scarlet  and  ermine.  And 
yet  I,  who  retain  some  affection  for  the 
man,  cannot  help  regarding  him  as  a 
failure.  He  is  jejune.  And,  Heaven 
forgive  me  for  saying  so,  he  is  a bore. 
A talk  with  him — if  ever  he  does  talk 
— means  five  minutes  of  witty  anecdote 


38  Success  and  Failure 

and  reminiscences  of  the  court,  and 
then  interminable  cases,  irrelevant,  dead, 
ashy,  the  very  fruit  of  the  Dead  Sea. 

Alas  for  these  successful  men,  whose 
lives  are  unchequered  with  failure  and 
trouble ! Is  not  God,  as  Jeremy 
Taylor  put  it,  “severely  kind  to  them”? 
Might  they  not  pray  for  some  of  the 
chastisements  which  a Father  does  not 
spare  His  children  ? Prosperity — is 
it  not  frequently  consistent  with  in- 
tense worldliness,  selfishness,  hardness 
of  heart  ? Is  not  even  disaster  wel- 
come which  teaches  self-sacrifice,  com- 
passion, charity,  religion  ? And,  to 
be  plain,  do  the  grander  qualities  of 
human  nature,  the  scorn  of  pleasure, 
the  passion  for  truth,  the  thirst  of 
knowledge,  the  philanthropy  of  service, 
the  ardour  of  religion  ever  bring  men, 
in  their  lifetime,  what  is  called  success? 
I conclude  that  the  last  thing  we 
should  desire  for  those  whom  we  love 
is  rapid  and  startling  success.  “ De- 
liver us  from  premature  success,” 


Of  Success  which  is  Failure  39 

should  be  our  prayer;  “let  it  come,  if 
at  all,  as  our  nature  is  strengthened  to 
receive  it  and  secured  against  its 
dangerous  influences. ” It  is  always 
perilous,  it  is  often  misleading.  A 
sudden  gleam  of  its  false  lights  may 
send  us  along  a fatal  course  and  land 
us  in  the  quagmire.  When  Charles 
XII.  of  Sweden  set  out  on  his  au- 
dacious career  he  gained  a brilliant 
victory  over  the  Russians  at  Narva  ; 
that  was,  strictly  speaking,  his  ruin  ; 
it  launched  him  upon  a series  of 
brilliant  but  ineffectual  victories,  which 
brought  no  good  to  Europe  and  infinite 
harm  to  Sweden.  From  her  great 
king’s  “ successes  ” Sweden  has  never 
yet  recovered,  and  now  perhaps  never 
can.  Happy  king  and  happy  country 
if  her  forces  had  been  routed  at  the 
beginning  and  her  king  had  been  sent 
home  to  govern  and  develop  his 
country!  The  world  teems  with  ruined 
lives  which  were  started  on  their  path 
of  ruin  by  a delusive  Narva  1 “ From 


40  Success  and  Failure 

our  victories,  good  Lord,  deliver  us  ; 
from  our  misleading  successes  and 
alluring  accidents  of  luck,  good  Lord, 
deliver  us;  from  the  beckoning  fingers, 
and  the  fancied  plaudits,  and  the 
visionary  crowns,  good  Lord,  deliver 
us  ! ” And  magnis  componere  parva — 
have  I not  seen  an  artist  ruined  by  a 
first  picture  injuriously  accepted  in  the 
Academy  ? Oh,  woful  fortune  ! The 
Academicians  were  sleepy,  or  they 
were  misled  by  a name,  or  a vacant 
place  wanted  filling  and  the  frame 
chanced  to  fit.  And  our  unhappy 
friend  was  determined  in  his  course  as 
an  artist,  seeing  already  the  magic 
letters  R.A.  dancing  after  his  name. 
Started  on  that  perilous  career,  he 
paints  no  more  Academy  pictures,  but 
paints  and  paints  his  poor  soul  out  on 
canvases  that  no  mortal  eye  can  desire, 
the  sport  and  dupe  of  fortune.  “ Ruined 
by  success  ” is  the  epitaph  to  place 
upon  his  hapless  tomb.  Could  not  the 
kind  wind  of  adversity  have  chilled  the 


Of  Success  which  is  Failure  41 

fatal  output  and  saved  the  man  by 
nipping  the  artist  in  the  bud  ? 

Far  better  was  that  overthrow  of 
Edyrn,  son  of  Nudd,  traitor  and  op- 
pressor, whom,  after  a brief  and 
dangerous  success,  Geraint  the  Prince 
overthrew.  Overthrown,  he  began  to 
live  : — 

And  rising  up,  he  rode  to  Arthur’s  court, 

And  there  the  Queen  forgave  him  easily  ; 

And,  being  young,  he  changed  and  came 
to  loathe 

His  crime  of  traitor,  slowly  drew  himself 

Bright  from  his  old  dark  life,  and  fell  at  last 

In  the  great  battle  fighting  for  the  King. 

Hitherto  I have  spoken  only  of  the 
success  which  is  failure  in  the  inci- 
dental sense ; the  strain  of  succeeding 
in  a secondary  direction  diverts  the 
energies  of  the  soul  from  the  direction 
which  is  essential.  But  a far  more 
sorrowful  contingency  falls  to  be  con- 
sidered ; there  is  a department  of 
failure  produced  by  success  which  is 
tragical  and,  properly  speaking,  the 
tragedy  of  our  day  and  generation. 


42 


Success  and  Failure 


Mournful  indeed  it  is  when  the  soul, 
as  the  penalty  of  prosperity,  grows 
jejune  or  withers  away ; more  mourn- 
ful is  it  when  the  soul,  inflated  and 
confident,  grows  wanton  and  proud ; 
but  most  mournful  of  all  is  it  when 
success  is  purchased  at  the  cost  of  the 
virtue,  the  honour,  the  chastity,  with- 
out which  the  soul  of  a man  becomes 
lower  than  the  soul  of  a beast.  It  is  a 
department  of  fact  which  no  realist  has 
perhaps  ventured  yet  to  depict,  for 
there  is  a vague  and  creeping  horror 
about  it.  A pen  that  can  move  easily 
in  the  description  of  dipsomania  or  ero- 
tomania, or  others  of  the  gross  de- 
liriums of  the  modern  spirit,  may 
shrink  back  in  dismay  from  this  subtler 
form  of  the  soul’s  suicide.  But  as  the 
prophet  says  : “ Cursed  be  he  that 
doeth  the  work  of  the  Lord  negli- 
gently, and  cursed  be  he  that  keepeth 
back  his  sword  from  blood.” 

The  sword  of  the  Spirit,  which  is  the 
word  of  God,  must  cut  without  sparing 


Of  Success  which  is  Failure  43 

into  this  deadliest  tumour  of  the  soul. 
Let  the  preacher  in  his  moment  of 
insight  and  inspiration  wield  the  sword  ; 
many  of  his  hearers  are  the  very  people 
who  are  in  danger  of  the  unpardonable 
sin.  But  many  of  these  imperilled 
souls  are  hearers  of  no  preachers.  Let 
some  poet  or  novelist  who  can  com- 
mand the  unpreached-to  masses  attempt 
the  theme. 

For  here  is  the  fact.  What  is  called 
success  in  business,  in  literature,  in 
society,  in  politics  and  public  life,  and, 
horrible  as  it  is  to  say  it,  what  is  called 
success  in  the  Church  and  in  religious 
work,  is  sometimes  purchased  by  a 
subtle  and  sinister  compromise  with 
evil,  as  definite  as  the  compact  by 
which  a mediaeval  witch  purchased  the 
power  of  the  moment  by  the  sale  of 
the  immortal  soul. 

The  ledger  which  is  kept  in  heaven 
is  never  opened  or  read  on  earth.  But 
if  we  are  not  the  sport  of  dreams, 
every  business  house  has  its  ledger  in 


44  Success  and  Failure 

heaven,  by  no  means  corresponding  to 
the  decent  book  which,  annually  audited, 
presents  an  irreproachable  balance  in 
case  of  a judicial  investigation.  Let 
me  take  up  my  parable  for  a moment. 
Here  is  a great  furniture  firm,  which 
fills  half  a street  with  shop  added  to 
shop,  and  covers  a city  with  its  vans, 
while  its  principals  rise  to  distinction 
in  society  and  in  public  life.  In  the 
flood-tide  of  its  success  all  the  lesser 
firms  and  businesses  are  submerged 
and  absorbed.  And  this  is  the  founda- 
tion on  which  its  fortunes  rest.  A 
suite  of  chairs  might  be  needed,  and 
the  manager  would  suggest  to  his 
journeymen  that,  following  a certain 
pattern,  they  should  send  in  their 
samples  in  competition  for  the  order. 
The  journeymen — a dozen  of  them — 
all  equally  good,  send  in  their  samples, 
which  together  make  the  suite.  u Well,” 
says  the  manager  to  each  man  singly, 
“ this  will  not  do,  but  that  you  may 
not  be  a loser  I give  you  the  price  of 


Of  Success  which  is  Failure  45 

your  material  and  a trifle  for  your 
labour.”  And  then  the  suite  is  sold 
for  a long  and  fair  price.  How  in- 
genious ! How  smart ! Success  at- 
tends such  preternatural  and  incon- 
ceivable ingenuity.  Yes,  but  the  man  ! 
the  soul  1 Is  it  in  vain  written,  “ Go 
to  now,  ye  rich,  weep  and  howl  . . . 
the  hire  of  the  labourers  which  is  of 
you  kept  back  by  fraud  crieth  out  ” ? * 
It  must  be  considered  that  many  pros- 
perous firms,  many  suburban  residences 
and  many  large  country  estates,  are 
reared  upon  such  foundations.  And 
inasmuch  as  the  eternal  laws  remain, 
and  yet  these  men  grow  fat  and  pros- 
perous and  pass  down  to  an  honoured 
grave,  there  can  be  little  doubt  that 
behind  the  gates  of  death  flashes  the 
vindictive  sword,  and  the  huge  success 
is  marked  in  heaven  with  the  ruin  of 
hell.  “ Therefore  mine  heart  soundeth 
for  Moab  like  pipes,  and  mine  heart 
soundeth  like  pipes  for  the  main  of 
* James  v.  1-4. 


46  Success  and  Failure 

Kir-heres ; therefore  the  abundance 
that  he  hath  gotten  is  perished.”  * 

But  again  let  me  take  up  my  parable. 
Here  is  your  man  of  letters,  appointed 
the  seer  and  the  preacher  of  an  age 
which  neglects  the  pulpit.  He  is  fitly 
crowned  with  the  bays,  and  his  voice 
sings  out  over  the  seas  in  his  “ fiftieth 
thousand  in  one  fortnight,”  and  the 
rest.  Is  not  this  success  ? It  is  all 
what  the  Americans  call  “ pheno- 
menal ; ” yes,  phenomenal  in  the  sense 
not  meant  by  our  cousins,  viz.,  mere 
appearance,  vanishing  as  the  baseless 
fabric  of  a dream.  For  observe,  our 
author  knows,  as  we  all  do,  that  the 
courses  of  our  poor  humanity  can  be 
easily  set  on  fire  by  the  insinuations  of 
vice.  He  knows,  as  we  all  do,  that 
the  prurience  of  the  young  makes  the 
innuendo  irresistible,  and  the  elders 
will  revel  in  the  task  of  reading,  “just 
to  see  if  the  book  is  suitable  for  the 
young  to  read  ! ” All  this  he  knows— 

* Jer.  xlviii.  36. 


Of  Success  which  is  Failure  47 

for  we  know  it.  And  he,  best  of  all  of 
us,  understands  how,  the  poisonous 
flood  once  risen  on  the  soul,  there  is 
no  staunching  of  its  fountains,  or  at 
least  no  cleansing  of  its  stains.  Con- 
scious of  the  spell  which  he  can  weave 
by  the  subtlety  of  words,  and  the  keen 
touch  of  his  finger  on  all  the  keys  of 
feeling,  he  is  aware  how  easily  unstable 
minds  may  be  overcome,  and  ruin 
effected  by  the  silent  page.  And 
knowing  this,  he  sells  his  soul  to  the 
devil,  and  writes  his  novel  or  his  poem 
with  the  poison  drenching  its  lines. 
He  has  a defence  for  what  he  is  doing, 
and  he  can  beat  down  his  prudish 
critics  with  the  clamorous  approval  of 
his  victims.  But  what  is  this  success  ? 
Who  uttered  the  words  to  the  effect 
that  for  a man  who  casts  a stumbling 
block  in  the  way  of  one  of  the  little 
ones  it  were  better  that  a millstone 
were  hung  around  his  neck  and  he 
were  drowned  in  the  depths  of  the  sea  ? 

Success  in  society  ! It  is  as  often 


48  Success  and  Failure 

as  not  purchased  by  the  sacrifice  of 
principle,  conscious  and  deliberate. 
As  society  is  at  present  managed, 
with  its  indiscriminate  admiration  of 
wealth,  and  its  haughty  indifference 
to  simple  human  merit,  its  way  of 
treating  philanthropies  as  the  craze  of 
a season,  and  religion  as  the  decision 
of  a fashion,  hardly  any  one  who 
values  his  soul  can  be  a success  in  it. 
He  may  move  in  it  as  a protester,  a 
militant  dissenter ; but  as  an  unques- 
tioning conformist  he  can  only  move 
in  it  by  the  sacrifice  of  principle.  And 
at  the  gates  of  society  lie  the  slain 
principles  which  have  been  sacrificed, 
like  the  heads  of  Ahab’s  sons  at  the 
gate  of  Jezreel.  Let  us  devoutly  thank 
God  that  society  is  exclusive  and 
limited.  “ Ten  thousand  ” are  enough 
as  its  martyrs. 

As  to  public  life  and  success  in  it, 
this  much  must  be  said  : Party  passion 
is  agreed  that  all  opponents  are 
chargeable  with  base  motives  and 


Of  Success  which  is  Failure  49 

unscrupulous  tactics,  and  thus  by  a 
general  though  contradictory  assent, 
all  successful  politicians  are  moral 
failures.  But  even  observers  who 
are  not  partisans  allow’  that  when 
ambition  is  once  in  the  saddle,  it 
shrinks  from  the  use  of  no  spur  how- 
ever evil.  And  further,  in  England, 
the  least  corrupt  country  it  is  said 
in  the  world,  one  may  see  that,  where 
pecuniary  interests  are  concerned, 
conscience  goes  by  the  board.  Wars 
are  made,  and  individuals  profit  by 
them  while  the  nations  groan.  The 
poisonous  drink  traffic  devastates  the 
land,  while  those  who  live  by  it  grow 
rich  and  honourable.  Unsanitary 
buildings  stand  under  the  aegis  of 
councillors  and  vestrymen.  By  the 
very  nature  of  the  case  the  people 
responsible  for  these  things  are  suc- 
cessful people,  people  who  have  ob- 
tained the  reins  of  power,  and  can 
control  Parliaments  and  Councils. 
Their  success  is,  depend  upon  it, 


r> 


50  Success  and  Failure 

counted  in  heaven  as  irretrievable 
failure,  and  instead  of  standing,  as 
they  seem  to  do,  upon  the  steps  of 
honour,  their  feet  tread  the  gulf  of 
bottomless  perdition. 

Of  those  religious  “ successes  ” 
which  are  purchased  by  gross  worldly 
means,  by  the  intrigue  of  Curias,  the 
lies  of  Jesuitism,  the  subserviency,  the 
crushing  of  conscience,  the  conceal- 
ment  of  conviction,  the  popular  clap- 
trap, the  hollow  flattery,  which  have 
made  Churches  and  Churchmen  hateful 
to  their  fellow  men,  I have  no  heart  to 
speak.  Dante  placed  his  Popes  in  the 
depths  of  hell  with  rare  poetic  instinct. 
The  Lord  Himself  reserved  all  His 
maledictions  for  the  hypocrites.  No 
pontifical  robes  or  broad  phylacteries  ; 
no  tiara,  or  biretta,  or  doctors  cap,  can 
screen  these  doomed  bodies  or  cover 
these  guilty  heads.  Their  success  is 
their  ruin.  Elected  priests  and  high- 
priests  of  Mammon  may  seal  their  own 
ate  as  the  outcasts  of  God. 


OF  FAILURE  WHICH  IS 
SUCCESS 


If  we  have  been  led  to  look  with 
scrutiny  and  even  suspicion  on  what 
is  generally  considered  success,  we 
have  a compensation ; we  may  look 
with  some  hope  on  what  is  generally 
considered  failure.  We  may  learn  that 
lesson  of  human  life — one  of  its  best 
lessons,  because  it  is  one  that  runs 
over  into  another  world : 

How  far  high  failure 
Transcends  the  bounds  of  low  success. 

Of  this  beautiful  lesson  I have  not 
chanced  to  light  on  any  more  apposite 
illustration  than  the  “ Letters  of  James 
Smetham.”*  It  is  one  of  those  books 
* Published  by  Macmillan  in  1892. 


52  Success  and  Failure 

which,  once  read,  stand  on  the  shelf 
with  a monitory  finger,  and  a sugges- 
tion of  the  heavens.  Smetham  was  an 
artist,  and  he  was  a failure  in  the 
sense  that  few  know  or  care  about  his 
pictures.  The  qualities  which  roused 
Ruskin’s  admiration  at  the  beginning 
were  not  able  to  conquer  an  indifferent 
public.  At  any  rate  his  memory  will 
be  green  not  as  that  of  a successful 
artist,  but  as  that  of  an  artist  who 
was  a failure.  On  the  other  hand, 
Smetham  is  one  of  the  few  men  of 
this  century  whose  life  strikes  me  as  a 
success.  It  was  lived  on  such  a plane 
and  in  such  a spirit  that  professional 
prosperity  was  always  secondary.  His 
eye  was  fixed  on  a far  distance,  and 
his  course  was  shaped  for  the  goal. 
That  the  necessary  curve  of  the  road 
carried  him  out  of  the  region  where 
popular  recognition  and  approval  wjere 
possible  did  not  affect  him.  He  had 
higher  things  in  view ; bent  on  the 
Celestial  City,  he  could  not  stay  to 


O f F allure  which  is  Success  53 

make  a reputation  in  Vanity  Fair.  He 
never  repented  of  his  choice  even  in 
that  dark  valley  of  the  shadow  which, 
for  him,  occurred  just  before  he  crossed 
the  river.  No  one  took  much  notice 
of  him  at  the  time ; but  he  was  writing 
these  letters,  and  whatever  other  pic- 
ture he  drew  or  did  not  draw,  he  has 
left  us  the  full-length  illustration  of 
the  failure  which  is  success.  I shall 
beg  the  reader  to  spend  a few  moments 
with  me  in  the  sweet  atmosphere  of 
Smetham’s  life ; for  this  will  probably 
carry  home  my  meaning  better  than  a 
laboured  argument.  His  wife  writes  : — 
“The  question  presented  itself  to 
him,  How  shall  I order  and  direct 
my  life ; what  shall  I aim  at  ? He 
felt  that  to  give  himself  up  to  the 
pursuit  of  painting,  simply  and  entirely, 
would  not  meet  the  need  of  his  nature. 
Both  his  moral  and  his  mental  imper- 
fection demanded  a continuous  and 
extended  culture,  and  he  began  to  ( 
formulate  a plan  of  life,  beginning  in 


54  Success  and  Failure 

a course  of  long  disciplinary  study, 
and  intended  to  combine  art,  literature, 
and  the  religious  life  all  in  one.  He 
carried  this  out.  ‘ It  took  me  twenty- 
five  years/  he  said  ; ‘ but  my  purpose 
was  to  paint  concurrently  with  it.  So^ 
with  rare  exceptions,  I painted  some 
hours  every  day,  and  practised  every 
requisite  of  art,  drew  every  bone  and 
muscle  over  and  over  again,  sketched 
books  on  books  full  of  every  phase  of 
nature,  studied  perspective  thoroughly, 
studied  the  antique,  went  through  as 
full  a course  as  any  student  in  the 
Academy;  but  alone.’  Thus  he  with- 
drew from  the  normal  lines  of  the  art 
career,  and  struck  out  a path  for  him- 
self.” Is  not  that  the  one  condition  of 
all  high  success  ? Withdraw,  be  not 
conformed ; strike  out  a line  for  thy- 
self ; be  thyself ! This  was  the  secret 
of  his  professional  failure ; this  was 
the  secret  of  his  real  success.  Thus 
at  the  age  of  forty — that  critical  age 
when  one  is  fairly  embarked,  and  to 


Of  Failure  which  is  Success  55 

put  back  to  port  and  start  again  is  no 
longer  possible — when  the  prow  is  well 
out  to  sea  and  forging  ahead  to  the 
unknown  shore — he  writes  (1861),  “ I 
think  I am  a little  sympathised  with  as 
a painter  who  has  not  got  on  somehow, 
whereas  in  my  own  secret  heart  I am 
looking  on  myself  as  one  who  has  got 
on,  and  got  to  his  goal ; as  one  who, 
if  he  had  chosen,  could  have  had  a 
competence,  if  not  a fortune,  by  this 
time ; but  who  has  got  something  a 
thousand  times  better,  more  real,  more 
inward,  less  in  the  power  of  others, 
less  variable,  more  immutable,  more 
eternal,  and  as  one  who  can  afford  a 
sly  wink  to  those  who  know  him, 
which  wink  signifies  that  he  is  not  so 
sure  that  he  is  not  going  to  do  some- 
thing comfortable  in  an  outward  and 
artistic  sense  after  all.  But  be  this  as 
it  may,  his  feet  are  on  a rock ; his 
goings  so  far  established  with  a new 
song  in  his  mouth  and  joy  on  his 
head — and  4s.  6d.  this  moment  in  his 


56  Success  and  Failure 

pocket,  besides  some  postage  stamps.” 
Is  not  that  “ high  failure  transcending 
the  bounds  of  low  success  ” ? 

Twelve  years  after,  there  was  a 
private  exhibition  of  his  pictures,  and 
from  a noble  lord  and  lady  he  received 
warm  sympathy  and  sold  to  them  his 
study  for  the  “ Hymn  of  the  Last 
Supper.”  That  was  the  acme  of  his 
outward  success ; so  much  attention, 
and  no  more,  the  busy  world  gave  to 
him  and  his  ways.  The  writer  of  his 
memoir  ends  it  with  a remark,  and  a 
pertinent  question.  It  mattered  not  to 
him  “ whether  his  audience  was  likely' 
to  be  a large  or  a small  one  ; only  that 
his  message  should  be  faithfully 
delivered  and  his  life-purpose,  as  such, 
should  be  fully  accomplished.  What- 
ever the  measure  of  external  success 
awarded  to  it,  can  any  life  with  such 
an  ideal  as  this  before  it  be  counted  a 
failure  ? ” 

Lest,  reader,  you  should  doubt, 
having  your  eye  on  diplomas  and  the 


Of  Failure  which  is  Success  57 

letters  R.A.,  and  the  influx  of  gold  as 
the  reward  of  effort,  I must  trouble  you 
to  listen  to  these  scraps  from  Smetham’s 
own  account  of  himself. 

“ Life  seems  tome  to  be  wonderfully 
blessed  and  perfect,  considering  its 
necessary  incompleteness  until  the 
restoration  of  all  things.  All  things 
fall  so  well  and  suitably  into  their 
places  that  there  is  no  want,  no  vexa- 
tious craving  for  something  we  have 
not  got.  I could  scarcely  wish  to 
realise  more  on  earth  of  an  earthly 
kind.  All  I wish  is  to  increase  the 
knowledge  of  God,  and  the  sense  of 
repose  in  Him  as  King  and  Father, 
through  His  Son  the  Mediator,  by 
whom  we  receive  all  satisfying  things.” 

This  is  how  he  writes  of  that  most 
wearing  of  human  experiences,  a sleep- 
less night.  “ I have  found  many 
pleasant  and  thankful  trains  of  thought 
filling  my  mind  in  the  darkness,  calm 
and  equable  impressions  of  truth,  and 
a steady,  peaceful  frame  of  feeling,  a 


58  Success  and  Failure 

sense  of  God  and  of  salvation,  a resting 
by  faith  on  His  word  and  will,  a 
thousand  pleasant  memories  of  His 
grace,  a persuasion  of  being  where  He 
would  have  me  be,  and  on  the  whole, 
of  doing  what  He  would  have  me  do — 
a life  going  in  the  right  track,  enclosed 
within  the  bounds  of  the  Church.” 
Smetham  was  a devout  and  active 
Methodist  all  his  days,  “and  seeking 
its  good  and  the  good  of  the  world.” 

Or  thus,  when  things  are  outwardly 
favourable:  “ A tender  April  morning 
opening  the  pores  of  the  nature  and 
filling  it  with  all  the  fulness  of  the 
spring.  All  is  easy  and  bland.  Reli- 
giously, no  state  is  without  its  materials 
of  fear.  The  service  on  Friday  was  so 
refreshing  and  soothing  ; yesterday  so 
fine  in  the  open  air  all  day  long ; 
to-day  is  so  pleasant  and  restful,  that 
Mephistopheles  is  disposed  to  say  : 
‘ Upon  my  word,  this  is  very  pleasant 
work.  I thought  religion  was  a sort  of 
being  crucified.  It  is  time  to  turn 


Of  Failure  which  is  Success  59 

pious  myself?  Still  we  ought  not  to 
be  cheated  out  of  our  comfort  because 
Mephistopheles  exhorts  us  to  make 
ourselves  long-faced.  To  keep  up  the 
sacrifice  of  Praise  and  Prayer  among 
the  violet  banks  1 stealing  and  giving 
odours/  while  the  spell  of  beauty  lies 
on  you,  and  the  soft  west  wind  fills 
you  with  a tingling  sense  of  immunity, 
requires  fresh  baptisms  of  grace ; and 
to  triumph  in  Christ  over  joy  and 
prosperity  is  as  difficult  as  over  grief 
and  pain?’  How  sweet  the  nature  is  ! 

When  fifty  has  come,  and  with  it 
small  success,  he  is  yet  a boy,  full  of 
eager  desire  to  paint  among  the  labour- 
ing classes  and  for  the  middle  classes 
what  they  really  want.  “ I’m  their 
man,  if  I can  suit  as  to  work.  I’ve  no 
qualms  as  to  being  an  ill-used  professor 
of  better  things,  for  the  joy  of  life  has 
long  risen  above  this  sort  of  nonsense.” 
Yes,  above  most  kinds  of  nonsense,  I 
should  say,  when  an  artist  can  write  in 
this  way  : “ In  the  family,  read  that 


60  Success  and  Failure 

part  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  which 
forbids  care,  and  went  to  work  humbly 
and  thankfully,  glad  to  be  able  by  ever 
so  much  labour  to  paint  a picture  worth 
a few  pounds.  Another  gospel  might 
have  made  me  look  on  myself  as  a 
neglected  genius,  and  I might  have 
sworn  bitterly  all  day,  or  dropped  work 
in  disgust  and  gone  off  loafing  to  a 
studio  to  infect  some  other  genius  with 
pride  and  discontent.  But  ‘ bless  the 
Lord,  O my  soul ! ’ No,  quite  the 
reverse.  How  carefully  I painted  my 
market-woman,  with  her  hens  in  a 
basket,  thankful  not  to  be  a Leicester 
stockinger  at  4s.  6d.  a week,  and  when 
a tired  feeling  came  over  me,  a flush  of 
divine  philosophy,  4 not  harsh  nor 
crabbed  as  dull  fools  suppose,  but 
musical  as  is  Apollo’s  lute,’  sent  me  on 
spinning  again,  running  and  not  weary, 
walking  and  not  faint.”  And  this : 
“To  learn  the  art  of  protracted  patience, 
to  learn  to  work  well  for  its  own  sake, 
to  learn  to  be  contented  with  very 


I 


Of  Failure  which  is  Success  61 

moderate  remuneration,  and  not  to  be 
betrayed  into  excited  hopes,  or  greedy 
desires,  this  is  better  than  thousands 
of  gold  and  silver. ” Thus  the  joyous 
spring  may  pass — through  no  exuberant 
summer — to  a mellow  autumn.  “ One 
effect  of  the  autumnal  years  of  life  is 
the  Indian  summer  of  thought  and 
study.  You  see  through  what  used  to 
excite  and  run  away  with  you.  Only, 
to  have  the  soft,  tranquil,  golden  light 
lying  level  over  all,  there  must  be  the 
right  world.  Autumn  is  not  a manu- 
facture ; it  is  a season,  and  depends  on 
the  operation  of  the  orbs,  on  a vast 
axis,  on  an  enormous  orbit,  on  the 
silent  signs  of  heaven.  It  filters  down 
into  every  cranny  impartially,  gilding 
our  lane,  but  it  comes  in  its  essence 
from  afar,  bound  by  gold  chains  about 
the  feet  of  God.  So  is  life.  When  a 
man  is  past  fifty,  if  he  has  been  a real 
student,  he  must  feel  that  he  has  had 
enough,  more  than  he  can  ever  use. 
He  sees  that  things  come  round  and 


62  Success  and  Failure 

meet  again.  The  youth  who  has  just 
passed  his  B.A.  is  far  cleverer  than  he, 
and  many  a thing  that  he  was  smart 
about  at  twenty-five  lies  in  the  mud, 
like  .Stephenson’s  old  steam-engine, 
rusting.  A new  generation  is  crowing 
all  round  him,  not  wise,  but  thinking 
itself  so  because  it  spells  cock-a-doodle- 
doo  with  a K (Kokadoodledoo),  yet  he 
is  not  disgusted  nor  cynical,  for  know- 
ledge and  wisdom  excel  folly,  as  light 
excelleth  darkness.”  And  so  life  ends 
in  a broad  calm  and  a promise  of 
to-morrow : “ Each  time  the  galley 
sails  up  the  Cydnus  I am  obliged  to 
ask  my  heart  the  old  set  of  questions, 
and  my  heart  replies  with  no  hesitation 
as  of  yore  : I would  not  have  it  other- 
wise. If  all  were  to  do  over  again,  I 
I would  do  just  the  same.  Only  I say 
this  with  more  rest  and  gladness  than 
ever,  with  more  entire  contentment, 
with  deeper  thankfulness  to  God  and 
to  man.” 

But,  you  will  say,  the  man  was  a 


Of  F allure  which  is  Success  63 

Christian,  and  had  Christ — and  there- 
fore his  failure  was  in  the  larger  sense 
a success  ! Precisely,  I should  reply  ; 
that  is  the  reason. 

From  the  elevation  of  that  high 
failure,  which  looks  down  upon  the 
mounds  and  burrows  of  low  success, 
he  could  survey  with  genuine  compas- 
sion those  who  filled  some  space  in  the 
world.  He  can  say  of  De  Quincey  : 
“ What  a queer,  mystic,  sublime,  in- 
scrutable, fascinating  old  mummy  he 
is ! Throw  your  mind  back  to  the 
days  when,  fifty  years  or  more  ago,  he 
wandered  in  London  streets,  and  what 
he  says  of  himself  in  the  ‘ Confessions  ’ 
then,  and  fancy  that  he  has  lasted  on 
till  now,  and  is  winking  and  blinking 
yet,  quoting  Latin  passages  out  of 
Father  Maremme,  a learned  Jesuit, 

1 page  1461/  which  he  Head  thirty 
years  ago/  and  backing  up  the  quota- 
tion with  another  from  Lactantius,  and 
another  from  Mimnermus,  and  finishing 
by  a queer  tale  about  a Kalmuck 


64  Success  and  Failure 

Tartar  and  an  Emperor  of  China. 
Now,  the  fact  is,  that  man  has  wasted 
his  life  ; and  one  can  only,  in  one’s 
soul,  use  him  as  Samson  used  the 
honey  out  of  the  dead  lion,  4 Out  of 
the  strong  came  forth  sweetness.’ 
Somehow  there  is  a divine  instinct 
within  us  which  decides  that  pre- 
eminence— using  the  term  in  its  final 
sense — shall  not  be  given  to  mere 
intellectual  strength  and  prowess.” 

Yes,  and  on  his  own  successful  con- 
temporary, Sir  David  Wilkie,  he  has 
something  to  say,  is  indeed  very  eager 
to  say  it : “ What  did  his  success  cost 
him  ? He  did  nothing  but  paint. 
What  he  read  was  only  by  the  way, 
and  though  his  mind  was  piercing  in 
its  energy  of  investigation  in  his  own 
line,  yet  he  was  no  better  than  the 
average  small  tradesman  out  of  it. 
Witness  his  lectures  and  the  small 
style  of  his  observations  generally. 
Witness  his  small  love  for  the  great. 
1 To  sit  at  their  tables,  mon,  it  is  grand.’ 


Of  Failure  which  is  Success  65 

Weak  and  watery  to  a degree  outside 
his  art,  his  life  was  commonplace  except 
within  it.  He  reaped  as  he  sowed, 
and  we  reap  the  benefit  of  his  sowing 
also,  with  untold  delight.  No  blame 
therefore  to  Wilkie,  and  great  gain  to 
us.”  No  blame  to  Wilkie,  no;  but  no 
great  praise  either,  and  certainly  no 
envy.  “ Perhaps  it  was  no  part  of 
Wilkie’s  biography  to  speak  of  his 
soul’s  history,  nor  was  Allan  Cunning- 
ham the  man  who  could  have  done  it. 
I see  no  evidence  in  his  writings  that 
in  his  youth  or  manhood  his  soul  was 
ever  awakened  within  him.  There  is 
nothing  to  distinguish  him  from  the 
good-natured,  moral,  canny  Scotchman 
of  the  world.  No  doubts  as  to  his 
course  seem  to  have  retarded  him  for 
an  hour.  He  leaped  into  fame  at  a 
bound  at  the  early  age  of  twenty-one. 
He  was  joined  at  once  to  polite  society ; 
to  the  society  in  fact  of  the  great ; and 
there  he  dwelt  all  his  years  on  the 
earth,  respected  and  respectable.  His 


E 


66  Success  and  Failure 

religion  as  far  as  it  appears  might  be 
summed  up  in  the  concluding  sentence 
of  a sermon  heard  by  my  friend 
Mr.  Chubb  from  the  lips  of  Sydney 
Smith,  whose  preaching,  by  the  way, 
Wilkie  much  admired.  ‘ Finally,  my 
brethren,  if  you  wish  to  die  respected, 
be  respectable/  Beyond  this  depth  I 
see  nothing  deeper  in  Wilkie’s  soul. 
I seem  to  hear  an  echo,  faint  and 
watery  as  in  a cold  old  mossy  well, 
‘ Well ! what  more  would  you  have  ? ’ 
It  is  this  * What  more  ? 1 that  is  the 
key,  the  cross,  the  crown  of  my  whole 
history  from  1843  t0  present 

time,  1871.” 

Conceive  a man  who  gives  no 
evidence  in  his  writings  that  “ his 
soul  has  ever  been  awakened  within 
him.”  Can  he  be  regarded  as  a 
success  ? Is  it  any  satisfaction  to  be 
a court  painter,  and  to  be  universally 
admired,  and  to  be  immortalised  even 
in  your  burial  by  the  brush  of  Turner, 
if  the  soul  has  never  been  awakened 


Of  F ailure  which  is  Success  67 

within  you  ? What  does  it  profit 
the  body  that  is  dropped  there,  off 
Gibraltar,  into  “that  vast  and  wan- 
dering wave  ” to  be  honoured  and 
remembered,  if  the  soul  has  never 
been  awakened  within  it  ? Smetham 
therefore,  without  one  touch  of  envy, 
but  with  large  compassion,  takes  his 
own  meed,  which  is  little,  and  sorrows 
that  another’s  meed  of  praise  should 
mean  the  abortion  of  a soul,  keenly 
aware, 

How  much  high  failure 
Transcends  the  bounds  of  low  success. 

But  there  is  something  more  to  be 
said  than  this.  Smetham  was  a failure 
because  he  was  bent  on  realising  him- 
self, not  as  an  artist  merely  but  as  a 
man  and  a Christian.  He  sets  his  sails 
for  the  far  haven,  knowing  that  he 
would  not  catch  the  wind  of  the 
popular  approval.  But  there  are  other 
lives  which  aim  at  the  lower  ends  and 
are  only  redeemed  by  their  failure  to 
attain  them.  Many  men  owe  their  souls, 


68  Success  and  Failure 

and  their  salvation,  to  the  mischance 
which  shatters  their  hopes,  and  when 
they  intend  Tarshish,  lands  them,  even 
through  a whale’s  gorge,  on  the  shore 
of  their  homeland.  I suppose  it  is  one 
of  Browning’s  best  lessons,  to  teach 
an  age  striving  after  success  of  the 
lower  kinds  this  truth.  And  is  it  not 
a rare  glimpse  into  that  poet’s  high 
wisdom,  that  he  taught  the  lesson 
most  distinctly  in  his  earliest  poems  ? 
Paracelsus  was  written  when  he  was 
himself  little  more  than  a boy ; it  is 
the  interpretation  of  the  young  man’s 
thoughts  of  life,  the  aims  he  is  setting 
before  himself.  Assuredly  every  young 
man,  and  in  these  days  every  young 
woman  too,  should  master  Paracelsus. 
You  are  not  equipped  for  life  until  you 
know  this  precept  of  the  way.  It  is 
difficult,  you  say,  to  follow  or  under- 
stand. Unhappily  it  is  ! But  not,  I 
think,  if  you  get  the  clue.  And  though 
I will  not  presume  to  be  the  interpreter, 
I will  set  down  here  the  lesson  of  the 


Of  Failure  which  is  Success  69 

poem  for  those  who,  from  chance  or 
misfortune,  are  constitutionally  unable 
to  read  it  for  themselves.  They  who 
love  poetry  will  read  it,  because  this 
is  poetry  of  the  highest  order  at  white 
heat.  But  the  lovers  of  poetry  are 
few,  while  those  who  need  this  gem  of 
teaching  are  many — are  all.  Paracelsus 
the  Latin  word  for  Ab  Hohenheim,  the 
little  town  in  Switzerland  from  which 
he  came,  “ He  of  the  high  home  ” as  it 
were — Philippus  Aureolus  Theophras- 
tus Bombastus  ab  Hohenheim,  was  the 
full  name — set  out  in  the  heyday  of 
youth,  which  fell  for  him  in  the  brilliant 
opening  of  the  sixteenth  century,  the 
heart  of  the  Renaissance,  the  eve  of 
the  Reformation,  with  a lofty  purpose 
to  know  and  to  teach.  In  his  glowing 
harangues  to  his  friends  Festus  and 
Michal  he  describes  his  aim,  and  bears 
down  all  opposition  which  maturer 
wisdom  and  the  humility  of  love  could 
suggest.  He  means,  exalted  above 
and  separated  from  his  kind,  to  press, 


70  Success  and  Failure  . 

not  by  study  or  mastering  the  results 
of  the  past,  but  by  the  bold  intuition 
of  genius,  to  the  secret  of  knowledge, 
and  to  benefit  mankind,  like  a god 
from  above,  without  demanding  any- 
thing from  them  but  recognition.  It 
is  an  aim  partly  noble — man  would 
always  be  as  God.  But  pride  is  at 
the  core.  Leaving  his  gentle  friends 
behind,  as  man  and  wife,  to  love  him, 
to  believe  in  him  and  to  pray  for  him, 
with  a lofty  sense  of  superiority  he 
starts  on  his  quest.  A certain  dazzling 
success  appears  to  justify  his  confi- 
dence. Admired  as  a philosopher,  he 
gathers  crowds  of  students  to  his  lec- 
tures. The  discoverer  of  the  narcotic 
effects  of  laudanum,  he  is  able  to  effect 
some  remarkable  cures.  His  name 
begins  to  ring  through  Europe.  Festus, 
full  of  admiration,  seeks  him  out  to 
rejoice  with  him.  But  the  great  man 
is  well  aware  that,  with  certain  elements 
of  real  knowledge  intermixed,  his 
science  is  in  the  main  a quackery. 


Of  Failure  which  is  Success  71 

Finding  how  easily  men  will  be  gulled, 
how  they  court  imposition,  and  demand 
of  their  teachers  that  they  be  charla- 
tans— he  has  yielded  to  the  temptation 
and  fallen.  Then,  sick  at  heart  with 
self-contempt,  he  has  sought  consola- 
tion in  the  excitement  of  wine.  Para- 
celsus receives  his  friend  with  a raillery 
which  cuts  him  to  the  quick,  and 
mockingly  assures  him  that  he  is  a 
miserable  failure.  As  their  common 
friend  Aprile  had  thought  to  achieve 
everything  through  the  pursuit  of 
beauty  and  failed,  so  he  had  failed  in 
his  intention  of  mastering  life  by 
knowledge.  Festus  leaves  him  foiled 
and  bewildered.  Then  the  expose 
comes,  and  Paracelsus,  denounced 
as  an  impostor,  is  driven  from  his 
professor’s  chair,  and  his  name  Bom- 
bastus  passes  for  ever  into  the  lan- 
guage of  the  world  as  a term  to 
express  empty  pretensions  and  inflated 
self-esteem. 

So  far  our  poet  follows  the  facts  of 


72  Success  and  Failure 

history.  The  failure  stands  confessed. 
But  now  Browning  would  teach  how 
this  failure  is  in  reality  success.  In 
this  he  follows  a line  which  is  all  his 
own.  He  therefore  shows  us  Paracel- 
sus, broken  and  discredited,  returning 
to  his  first  friend,  Festus — Michal,  alas, 
is  dead  ! — to  die.  He  turns  to  die  with 
his  hand  in  that  hand  of  love  which  he 
had  ignored  if  not  despised.  He  has 
made  the  discovery — this,  after  all,  has 
been  the  vital  piece  of  knowledge 
gathered  in  his  life — that  knowledge 
and  power  are  of  little  worth  without 
love.  How  can  a man  be  separated 
from  his  kind  ? They  are  half  of  him- 
self, aye,  and  the  larger  half.  To  be 
human,  to  be  in  sympathy  with  men, 
to  draw  on  their  affections  and  to  give 
them  love  in  return,  is  better  than  to 
discover  and  to  bestow  upon  them 
facts  as  from  the  hands  of  a god.  Nay, 
the  whole  of  life  is  given  to  us  for  our 
chance  of  learning  love.  Paracelsus 
has  become  very  humble  now,  and 


Of  Failure  which  is  Success  73 

craves  nothing  but  to  be  restored  to 
his  fellows,  even  in  death  : 

I want  to  be  forgotten,  even  by  God. 

But  if  that  cannot  be,  dear  Festus,  lay  me 
W hen  I shall  die,  within  some  narrow  grave, 
Not  by  itself— for  that  would  be  too  proud — 
But  where  such  graves  are  thickest ; let  it 
look 

Nowise  distinguished  from  the  hillocks  round, 
So  that  the  peasant  at  his  brother’s  bed 
May  tread  upon  my  own  and  know  it  not ; 
And  we  shall  all  be  equal  at  the  last, 

Or  classed  according  to  life’s  natural  ranks, 
Fathers,  sons,  brothers,  friends — not  rich 
nor  wise, 

Nor  gifted  : lay  me  thus,  then  say,  “ He  lived 
Too  much  advanced  before  his  brother  men  ; 
They  kept  him  still  in  front ; ’twas  for  their 
good, 

But  yet  a dangerous  station.  It  were  strange 
That  he  should  tell  God  he  had  never  ranked 
With  men  ; so,  here  at  last  he  is  a man.” 

That  may  seem  poor  success  out  of 
a life’s  failure.  But  it  is  enough. 
“The  soul  is  at  last  awakened  within 
him.”  In  many  things  we  all  err. 
We  try  the  bypaths,  and  the  gleaming 
ways  which  seem  to  lead  upward  to 
the  heights,  seem  to  scale  heaven  by  a 


74  Success  and  Failure 

short  and  hazardous  climb.  It  is 
something  if  the  thunder  breaks  and 
drives  us  down,  or  some  tale  of  the 
barren  summit  makes  us  wise  in  time, 
so  that  at  any  rate  before  death  falls, 
we  find  ourselves  within  the  wicket- 
gate,  on  the  right  road,  though  far 
away.  It  is  by  failures  more  than  by 
successes  that  God  produces  that 
result.  And  therefore  the  true  success, 
in  his  eyes,  is  often  what  passes  here 
as  failure. 

If  I stoop 

Into  a dark  tremendous  sea  of  cloud, 

It  is  but  for  a time  : I press  God’s  lamp 
Close  to  my  breast  ; its  splendour  soon  or 
late 

Will  pierce  the  gloom  ; I shall  emerge  one 
day. 


OF  THE  ADMIRATION  OF 
FAILURE 


That  desire  of  Paracelsus  to  be  laid 
“ within  some  narrow  grave,  not  by 
itself — for  that  would  be  too  proud — 
but  where  such  graves  are  thickest,” 
reminds  one  of  the  beautiful  story  told 
of  Lamennais.  The  great  preacher, 
who  had  striven  so  passionately  for 
the  rights  of  the  people  against  the 
corrupt  tyranny  of  the  Church,  who 
under  the  ban  of  the  Church  had 
suffered  the  loss  of  all  things — a failure, 
one  might  say,  if  ever  there  was  one — 
excommunicated  by  Rome,  and  not 
received  by  any  kindlier  Church,  the 
martyr  of  the  people,  yet  not  as  it 
were  recognised  by  the  people  for 


j6  Success  and  Failure 

whom  he  suffered  martyrdom,  made 
this  request  in  dying  : he  would  not 
have  a monument,  nor  be  in  any  way 
distinguished  from  others,  but  might 
he  be  buried  among  the  thousands  of 
nameless  dead  in  Pere  la  Chaise? 
Let  life’s  acknowledged  failure  be  lost 
or  merged  in  that  vast  seeming  failure 
of  our  common  mortality — for  it  is  in  the 
very  vastness  of  this  apparent  failure, 
the  nameless  graves,  the  rolling  tide 
of  humanity,  breaking  in  monotonous 
roar,  wave  after  wave  on  that  stillness 
and  darkness  of  the  tomb  ; it  is  in  this 
tragical  fact,  fitted  to  make  angels 
weep,  that  the  yearning  for  redemptive 
success  strains  to  the  point  of.  pro- 
phecy and  assured  belief.  If  the 
failures  of  life  were  few,  we  should 
despair  of  them  But  they  are  many, 
very  many.  In  a great  London  ceme- 
tery or  at  Pere  la  Chaise,  more  per- 
sistently than  with  Gray  in  Stoke 
Poges  churchyard,  we  are  driven  to 
some  demand  of  a solution  which  can- 


Of  the  Admiration  of  Failure  77 

not  be  set  aside.  Earth’s  successes 
leave  us,  in  such  a situation,  with  the 
dreariest  sense  of  failure.  These  dis- 
tinguished names  have  become  only 
names,  hardly  distinguished.  How 
faded  are  these  grouped  banners  ranged 
over  the  tombs  of  the  soldiers  ! Who 
can  tell  us  anything  of  this  eminent 
judge,  this  poet,  counted  facile  princeps 
of  his  time  (that  is  the  assertion  on  the 
grave  of  Edmund  Waller,  Milton’s 
contemporary,  at  Beacon sfield)  ? What 
can  be  known  of  this  famous  knight 
and  his  lady,  the  long  line  of  sons 
diminishing  in  height  kneeling  behind 
him,  the  long  line  of  daughters  diminish- 
ing in  height  kneeling  behind  her  ? 
And  these  are  the  illustrious  among 
the  great  majority — the  handful  of 
human  beings  who  lived  in  a civilised 
country,  which  does  not  in  revolution 
or  in  neglect  efface  the  records  of  its 
dead.  To  the  millions  of  those  who 
have  lived  and  died  these  are  as  the 
bright  stars,  Sirius,  Arcturus,  Aide- 


78  Success  and  Failure 

baran,  to  the  dust  of  the  Milky  Way. 
Yes,  earth’s  successes  afford  no  con- 
solation to  an  eye  that  ranges  far. 
Human  life,  if  it  is  to  be  justified  at 
all,  can  only  depend  on  counsel  for 
the  defence,  who  will  take  the  bold 
course,  that  its  meaning  is  entirely 
determined  by  its  future.  As  a be- 
ginning, as  a preliminary  stage,  some- 
thing can  be  said  for  it.  As  an  end, 
as  a whole  in  itself,  nothing,  absolutely 
nothing. 

For  the  interpretation  which  hope 
gives  to  even  the  worst  failures  of  life, 
I turn  instinctively  again  to  Browning, 
who  seems  to  have  made  this  subject 
his  own.  The  poor,  second-rate  writers 
have  little  hope.  They  handle  humanity 
and  the  woes  of  life  in  a way  which 
points  to  despair.  It  is  what  George 
Eliot  used  to  call  “ vivisection,  with 
no  touch  of  a healer.”  But  Browning 
had  an  unconquerable  conviction  that 
God  is  not  to  be  foiled.  He  will  take 
you  therefore  into  the  presence  of  the 


Of  the  Admiration  of  Failure  79 

world’s  most  dismal  failures,  and  raise 
his  chant  of  irrepressible  hope  even 
there.  We  are  not  obliged  to  examine 
the  theology  of  such  a situation  as  is 
given  in  Apparent  Failure.  Our  theo- 
logy is  of  things  we  know,  things  re- 
vealed and  placed  within  our  appre- 
hension ; a firm  rock  on  which  we 
may  stand  in  the  waste  of  waters. 
But  there  is  a vast  world  about  the 
little  region  of  the  revealed  ; there 
our  hearts  beat,  and  our  hopes  aspire, 
though  we  cannot  know.  Will  you 
look  at  that  little  poem  at  the  end  of 
Dramatis  Personce  ? We  find  our- 
selves in  the  Morgue  at  Paris.  There 
lie  behind  the  glass  three  corpses  : 

The  three  men  who  did  most  abhor 

Their  life  in  Paris  yesterday, 

So  killed  themselves. 

Now  the  poet  can  only  think  of  these 
three  men  that  God  made  them.  This 
poor  boy  was  foiled  in  ambition  ; this 
fierce  Socialist  was  sick  of  a life  which 
he  could  not  remedy  ; and  this  unhappy 


8o 


Success  and  Failure 


debauchee,  stained  with  lust,  and  the 
greed  of  gambling,  was  frustrated,  and 
chose  death.  Yes,  the  lesson  is  terrible 
enough.  No  one  can  stand  here  with- 
out feeling  that  goodness  is  better  than 
badness,  gentleness  than  fierceness, 
sanity  than  madness  ; but — here  rises 
the  wrestling  cry  of  the  optimist  and 
the  believer  in  God — but, 

My  own  hope  is,  a sun  will  pierce 
The  thickest  cloud  earth  ever  stretched  ; 

That,  after  Last,  returns  the  First, 

Though  a wide  compass  round  be  fetched  ; 

That  what  began  best,  can’t  end  worst, 

Nor  what  God  blessed  once,  prove  accurst. 

t(  My  own  hope  is.”  Yes,  it  can  be 
at  the  most  a hope,  a longing  to  vindi- 
cate the  love  and  the  power  of  God. 
It  remaineth  unrevealed.  The  ignoble 
failures  of  life  are  not  meant  to  leave 
us  sprinkled  with  rosewater,  and 
laughingly  expectant,  but  in  sackcloth 
and  ashes,  seriously  asking  where  the 
royal  road  was  missed,  and  how  one 
can  avoid  the  divergence  into  the 


Of  the  Admiration  of  Failure  8 1 

byways  of  sin,  and  the  mazes  of  the 
heart.  We  need,  God  needs,  our  poet 
of  hope.  In  the  circumambient  air  of 
the  unrevealed,  he  lets  lights  flash,  and 
soft  voices  sound.  This  is  largely  the 
function  of  poetry.  But  for  knowledge, 
for  the  practical  guidance  of  life,  we 
need  a more  sure  word  of  testimony. 
And  all  that  we  knoiv  forbids  us  to 
take  refuge  in  indolent  dreams,  that 
the  faults  of  passion  and  lust,  the  ruin 
of  pride  and  selfishness,  the  mad  mis- 
anthropy of  men  who  would  make  the 
world  just  by  injustice,  and  establish 
the  throne  of  love  by  hate,  can  be 
lightly  set  aside  in  a life  to  come, 
while  the  souls  in  a new  birth  start 
untainted  and  forgetful.  It  were  a 
pleasant  theory  if  we  all  lived  out  of 
contact  with  the  frenz}^,  the  crime,  the 
sewer  of  sin.  But  face  to  face  with 
these  hateful  things,  which  ever 
threaten  to  gain  the  mastery,  we  are 
constantly  thrown  back  on  the  more 
probable  theory  that  sin,  and  the 


F 


82  Success  and  Failure 

failures  it  causes,  come  under  an  in- 
calculable penalty. 

Yet  Browning  may  be  right  in 
vindicating  even  those  three  forlorn 
and  mis-shapen  corpses.  The  man 
who  takes  his  life  in  madness  may  not 
be  responsible.  The  crimes  which 
horrify  the  world  may  often  be  the 
errors  of  a mind  bent,  but  perversely, 
on  good.  The  very  debauchee  may 
have  excuses  in  God’s  sight  which 
even  he  himself  would  hardly  dare  to 
urge.  But  I for  one,  in  this  dim  light 
of  the  world,  and  unillumined  here  by 
any  definite  truth  of  God,  hold  very 
firmly  that  what  is  sin,  what  is  in 
God’s  sight  sin,  and  sin’s  undoubted 
failures,  pass  out  of  our  sight  under 
the  cloud  of  the  wrath  of  God  ; and  of 
such  failures  we  can  only  speak  with 
pity  and  awe,  and  infinite  humility, 
considering  lest  we  also  be  tempted. 

But  the  noble  failures,  those  which 
arise  from  the  disparity  between  the 
soul’s  aspiration  and  the  limited  possi- 


Of  the  Admiration  of  Failure  83 

bilities  of  life,  failures  not  for  the  most 
part  moral,  but  of  time  and  space, 
those  failures  which  the  foolish  world 
dreads  almost  as  much  as  death,  I 
claim  for  them  your  sincere  admira- 
tion. 

We  have  been  occupied,  and  very 
properly,  most  of  our  time  in  thinking 
of  that  large  and  ultimate  meaning  of 
success,  the  realisation  of  the  soul,  of 
the  will  of  God,  of  the  Christian  life ; 
and  we  have  1 trust  all  been  led  to 
discern  and  to  love  that  success,  even 
when  it  is  accompanied,  or  even 
effected,  by  apparent  failure  in  the 
world.  But  even  if  we  stop  short  of 
that  high  argument,  there  is  a kind 
of  failure  which  noble  minds  will 
always  admire,  and  which  ignoble 
minds  will  always  despise,  so  that 
the  manner  in  which  you  regard  it 
becomes  in  a way  the  test  of  your 
spiritual  condition. 

There  is  a sense  in  which  the  mere 
consistency  of  mental  effort,  though  it 


84  Success  and  Failure 

produce  no  apparent  result,  may  be 
regarded  as  an  end  in  itself,  and 
capable  of  defying  the  world’s  sneer  of 
failure.  “ To  be  wholly  devoted  to 
some  intellectual  exercise  is  to  have 
succeeded  in  life,”  says  R.  L.  Steven- 
son in  his  posthumous  work,  “ Weir 
of  Hermiston,”  a final  confession  there- 
fore of  a life  which  was  handicapped, 
“and  perhaps  only  in  law  and  the 
higher  mathematics  may  this  devotion 
be  maintained,  suffice  to  itself  without 
reaction,  and  find  continual  rewards 
without  excitement  ” — a weary  confes- 
sion, perhaps,  for  if  this  satisfaction  is 
not  found  in  imaginative  and  literary 
work,  law  and  higher  mathematics 
present  rather  a cheerless  prospect. 
But  the  judgment  is  just,  given  the 
great  outlook,  the  sense  of  immortality, 
and  the  taste  of  the  truth  that  humanity 
is  corporate,  and  each  effort  towards 
discovery  or  enlightening  thought, 
however  partial  or  limited,  is  reckoned 
in  the  gross  gain  of  the  whole. 


Of  the  Admiration  of  Failure  85 

Now  and  again,  you  come  across  a 
man  who  has  devoted  his  life  to  a 
discovery  or  to  a branch  of  study 
which  the  world  is  little  concerned 
with.  He  has  been  content  to  live  in 
poverty  and  obscurity,  not  because  he 
thinks  that  he  can  realise  the  end  in 
view,  but  merely  because  he  thinks 
that  it  ought  to  be  realised.  Ars  longa} 
vita  brevis . He  has  lived  in  the  length 
of  art,  and  not  in  the  brevity  of  life. 
And  in  his  unremunerated  toil,  the 
quiet  faith  has  formed  that  not  only 
is  the  knowledge  he  seeks  immortal 
and  sure  of  attainment,  if  not  by  him, 
then  by  those  who  come  after  him, 
but  he  also  himself  is  immortal,  and  in 
this  apparently  futile  task  of  his  life  is 
trying  a prelude  to  a future  which  is 
not  doomed  to  futility. 

Men  in  this  mood  give  us  a broader 
conception  of  God  and  the  universe ; 
they  are  the  salt  of  the  earth.  Observe 
them  and  study  them  in  the  light  of 
Browning’s  poem,  A Grammarian's 


86  Success  and  Failure 

Funeral , one  of  the  few  poems  of  the 
greatest  teacher  of  our  century  which 
have  got  almost  within  the  reach  of 
every  one.  In  the  great  period  of  the 
revival  of  learning  in  Europe- — the 
days  of  Erasmus,  let  us  suppose,  or  of 
that  Gerard,  Erasmus’  father,  whom 
Charles  Reade  made  immortal  in  The 
Cloister  and  the  Hearth — there  is  a 
laborious  scholar  who  has  devoted  his 
life  to  the  careful  study  of  Greek 
grammar.  Much  depends  on  the 
minute  understanding  of  Greek  gram- 
mar— the  right  interpretation  of  the 
Greek  Testament,  for  example.  Not 
ambitious  of  broad  achievements,  this 
scholar  has  aimed  only  at  settling  the 
usage  of  a few  particles,  such  as  the 
enclitic  ye;  as  he  slowly  dies  of  para- 
lysis, brought  on  by  unremitting  toil, 
he  pursues  his  work  just  as  if  he  had 
years  of  life  before  him.  This  is  his 
task — a small  one — he  cannot  finish 
it;  but  he  will  carry  it  just  as  far  as  he 
can,  and  when  he  can  go  no  farther, 


Of  the  Admiration  of  Failure  87 

he  will  lay  down  his  pen,  and  let  his 
spirit  rest,  strong  in  the  assurance  that 
“ Man  has  Forever  ” — mankind  per- 
haps, or  the  individual  man  ? It 
matters  not  to  him,  for  he  has  identified 
his  life  with  the  New  Learning  ; he  is 
one  of  the  body  of  scholars  who  will 
make  Greek  live  again.  He  will  be 
satisfied  to  live  in  their  success.  And 
for  himself,  indifferent  to  fame,  devoted 
to  the  great  pursuit  of  his  life — well, 
perhaps  beyond  the  grave  he  will  have 
time  to  consider  himself,  and  a good 
God  will  speak  of  a “ well  done,  good 
and  faithful  ” — perhaps,  but  he  has 
hardly  entertained  that  idea. 

And  now  here  are  his  pupils,  carry- 
ing his  corse  on  their  shoulders  to  the 
top  of  the  hill,  that  they  may  bury  him 
there ; the  soul  of  the  man  who  accom- 
plished nothing  has  still  an  affinity 
with  the  heights.  And  as  they  climb 
they  sing.  He  did  not  draw  the  circle 
premature,  heedless  of  far  gain,  greedy 
for  quick  return  of  profits.  Now,  with 


88  Success  and  Failure 

a grand  sweep  of  the  eye,  he  took  in  a 
range  in  which  his  brief  human  life, 
prolonged  to  the  utmost,  could  be  only 
the  opening  movement.  He  would 
have  heaven’s  success  found,  nor  care 
about  earth’s  failure.  Listen  to  the 
song  of  his  scholars  : 

That  low  man  seeks  a little  thing  to  do, 

Sees  it  and  does  it ; 

This  high  man,  with  a great  thing  to  pursue, 
Dies  ere  he  knows  it. 

Yes,  aim  at  a unit,  and  you  may  hit 
it ; but  aim  at  a million,  and  you  may 
fail  though  you  have  attained  many 
units,  or  even  thousands.  Thus,  your 
man  of  the  low  aims  has  the  world 
here,  but  as  for  the  next  ? It  is  not 
within  his  project.  But  this  man  of 
the  high  aims  has  thrown  himself 
forward  on  God.  Shall  he  not  find 
Him  ? Surely. 

Now  we  have  reached  the  plat- 
form on  the  hill’s  top,  the  haunt  of 
all  the  high  fliers  of  the  feathered 


race  : 


Of  the  Admiration  of  Failure  89 

This  man  decided  not  to  live,  but  know  ; 

Bury  him  here ; 

Here — here’s  his  place,  where  meteors  shoot, 
clouds  form, 

Lightnings  are  loosened, 

Stars  come  and  go  ! Let  joy  break  with  the 
storm, 

Peace  let  the  dew  send. 

Lofty  designs  must  close  in  like  effects, 

Loftily  lying, 

Leave  him — still  loftier  than  the  world 
suspects, 

Living  and  dying. 

This  failure,  then,  we  shall  admire 
when  we  are  trained  by  our  seers  and 
poets  to  understand  the  truth.  How 
much  more  the  failure  of  those  who, 
having  set  their  hearts  on  God,  and 
far  off  divine  events,  are  in  this  world 
dim-eyed  from  excess  of  distant  light ; 
and  left-handed — left-handed  from  pre- 
occupation of  the  right  hand  in  eternal 
things  ! 

But  now  we  must  come  to  a con- 
clusion and  spread  full  sail  for  our  port. 
Many  men  spend  their  lives  in  vain 
fears  ; living  among  shadows,  they  are 
frightened  by  the  shadows.  One  of 


90  Success  and  Failure 

them  dreads  poverty,  another  the  col- 
lapse of  his  professional  prospects ; 
one  dreads  a nameless  grave,  another 
a lost  reputation.  This  fear  of  failure 
is  one  of  the  strongest  motives  in  life, 
and  one  of  the  meanest.  This,  more 
than  anything  else,  keeps  us  from 
setting  our  eyes  on  the  curve  of  the 
eternal  aspiration,  and  prevents  great 
things  from  being  done.  But  our  only 
dread  should  be  lest  we  so  pitch  the 
scale  of  life  that  we  can  attain  com- 
plete success  in  it.  What  we  should 
accept  with  equanimity,  if  not  with 
gratitude,  is  the  discovery  that  our 
endeavour  has  been  for  that  Impossible 
which  draws  our  spirits  out  to  the 
Real.  And  this  brings  to  my  mind  a 
vision  of  the  last  things.  On  the 
shore  of  the  invisible  land  souls  were 
arriving  ; and  putting  off  the  garments 
which  they  had  brought  with  them 
from  life  ; they  were  stepping  on  to  the 
beach  stripped  and  apparent.  There 
had  been  a crowd  to  witness  their  de- 
parture from  the  shore  of  the  visible ; 


Of  the  Admiration  of  Failure  91 

there  was  also  a crowd  to  witness 
their  arrival  in  the  invisible.  Now, 
the  company  of  souls  was  great,  and  I 
found  it  only  possible  to  observe  three 
or  four  at  the  most.  And  standing 
where  I did,  at  the  meeting  line  of  the 
two  worlds,  I was  a witness  of  every 
detail  in  the  scene,  and  my  eye  was 
the  more  riveted  to  the  few  instances 
which  attracted  my  attention.  There 
was  Alexander  the  Great,  who  left  the 
shore  of  the  visible  with  extraordinary 
acclamations.  I heard  all  the  roar  of 
Babylon  and  the  muttered  applause  of 
conquered  nations.  The  farewells 
were  such  as  would  be  given  to  a god 
who  had  visited,  and  was  now  leaving, 
a lower  world.  Poets  were  chanting 
threnodies ; women  were  weeping ; 
great  captains  were  lamenting  and  eye- 
ing each  other  with  dismay,  like  dogs 
when  the  leash  is  withdrawn.  Alex- 
ander himself  seemed  not  unwilling  to 
go.  The  wine  was  in  him.  He  seemed 
to  himself  on  the  confines  of  a con- 
quered world,  and  a certain  weariness 


92  Success  and  Failure 

of  achievement  had  come  over  him. 
He  passed,  the  earth  ringing  with  the 
cry,  “ Successful.”  But  in  the  brief 
passage  his  trappings  fell  away  ; and 
for  all  the  bravery  of  his  departure 
from  the  shore  of  the  visible,  I saw 
that  he  had  as  much  as  he  could  do  to 
effect  even  a footing  on  the  invisible. 
The  crowd  that  was  there  to  receive 
him  did  not  recognise  him  among  the 
passengers  ; and  when  they  recognised 
him,  they  fell  back  disappointed.  I 
heard  a long  murmur  to  the  effect  that 
he  had  no  affinities  in  this  place,  and 
presently  I saw  him  wander  along  the 
shore  disconsolate,  his  hands  reached 
out  to  the  distant  coast  he  had  left, 
like  an  exile  who  never  can  return. 

And  almost  at  the  same  time  I be- 
held Csesar,  calm  and  debonair,  em- 
barked upon  the  ship  amid  the  mingled 
tears  and  execrations  of  mankind.  He, 
too,  was  willing  to  depait,  having  at- 
tained all  that  could  be  attained,  as 
poet,  historian,  governor,  and  organiser 
of  men.  His  coming  was  eagerly  ex- 


Of  the  Admiration  of  Failure  93 

pected  on  the  other  shore,  but  he  had 
the  same  difficulty  as  Alexander  in  dis- 
embarking, and  his  foot  slipped  as  he 
touched  the  strand,  but  he  did  not  be- 
think him  to  avert  the  omen  by  kissing 
it  and  claiming  it  as  his  motherland. 
With  a look  of  high  disgust  he  rose 
and  sought  for  some  recognisable  face. 
He  was  singularly  shrunk,  and  the 
multitude  inquired  if  this  was  the  man 
who  had  never  been  beaten  in  a battle, 
and  had  never  missed  his  design.  And 
I heard  him  say,  with  a great  sigh, 
that  he  was  not  conscious  of  ever 
having  won  a battle,  or  attained  a 
design ; and  this  design  least  of  all 
was  accomplished,  this  battle  least  of 
all  was  won  ; for  he  had  believed  that 
by  dying  he  would  conquer  life,  and 
would  reach  at  least  the  goal  of  ceasing 
to  be. 

And  then  I observed  two  who  set 
off  from  the  shore  of  the  visible  with 
so  inconsiderable  a state  that,  among 
the  crowd,  I could  hardly  discern  what 
was  happening.  The  one  appeared 


94  Success  and  Failure 

to  be  hurled  on  to  the  deck  of  the  ship 
with  loud  cries  of  “ Crucify  Him/’  and 
a little  company  of  those  who  seemed 
to  regret,  could  not  so  much  as  make 
their  feeble  voices  heard.  Little  had 
He  to  lay  aside  on  the  passage,  for  of 
earthly  vestments  He  seemed  to  wear 
none.  But  very  wonderful  was  the 
reception  that  awaited  Him  on  that 
other  shore.  For  it  appeared  as  if 
the  \vhole  land  was  moved  at  His 
coming,  and  the  shout  of  a conqueror 
went  before  Him,  and  the  adoration  of 
a god  followed  after.  On  the  one 
shore  there  had  been  nothing  but  the 
loud  deep  cry  of  failure,  on  the  other 
the  cry  “ Victory  ” echoed  and  re- 
echoed, as  if  serried  ranks  of  men 
caught  up  the  sound,  and  whole  circles 
of  hills  reverberated  it,  and  passed  it 
on  to  infinite  distances.  In  this 
mighty  irruption  of  victory  and  suc- 
cess, I noted  that  a new  movement 
began  ; and  the  stamp  of  crucifixion 
seemed  to  become  a passport  into  the 
invisible  courts.  For  many  came  now 


Of  the  Admiration  of  Failure  95 

to  the  landing-place  radiant  with  a 
shining  cross  upon  their  brows.  And 
among  the  rest  there  was  one  that 
held  my  attention  until  the  vision 
faded.  It  was  a soul  that  had  wrought 
for  years  in  a city  slum.  She  had 
gone  from  room  to  room,  and  returned 
to  her  own  day  after  day,  but  no  room 
seemed  improved ; and  in  the  shifting 
tide  of  misery  and  sin  no  one  could  be 
arrested  and  grasped  long  enough  to 
be  saved.  And  now  that  she  put  off 
from  the  shore  of  the  visible,  her 
failure  was  so  complete  that  not  one  of 
those  whom  she  had  visited  came  to 
see  her  on  her  deathbed,  and  the  world 
outside  the  slum  had  forgotten  that 
she  existed.  There  were  no  tears 
except  her  own,  which  were  shed  over 
the  futility  of  her  life.  There  were  no 
words  of  regret  except  her  own,  not 
unmingled  with  gratitude — the  regret 
that  she  had  done  so  little,  the  grati- 
tude that  she  had  been  allowed  even  to 
try. 


go  Success  and  Failure 

Here,  in  the  ruins  of  my  years, 

Master,  I thank  Thee  through  my  tears — 
Thou  suffered’st  here,  and  did’st  not  fail  ; 

Thy  bleeding  feet  these  paths  have  trod — 

But  Thou  wert  strong,  and  I am  frail. 

And  so  she  embarked.  But  her  re- 
ception on  the  other  shore  was  sur- 
prising. She  arrived  bearing  the 
radiant  mark  of  the  cross  on  her  brow, 
and  it  appeared  as  if  all  her  treasures 
had  gone  on  before  and  were  awaiting 
her,  and  now  at  last  her  heart  was 
where  her  treasures  had  long  been. 
She  seemed  personally  known  to 
everybody ; and  when  she  heard  her 
life  greeted  as  a great  success,  she  re- 
membered how  often,  in  the  long  and 
weary  years,  from  the  torn  edges  of 
the  fruitless  days  drops  of  sweetness 
had  distilled,  and  a hope  had  always 
nestled  in  her  heart  that,  though  an 
unprofitable  servant,  she  was  serving 
a profitable  Lord,  and  though  her  eye 
was  set  on  no  low  or  earthly  success, 
in  heaven  she  would  be  not  a failure. 


